tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63239631890608038822024-02-18T20:45:28.827-08:00Anona-momUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger723125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-60892816836058743372022-03-20T22:46:00.002-07:002022-03-20T22:46:15.233-07:00Out of Focus<p><img alt="" id="id_8b8b_984d_25c5_8ab7" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/RflEWN7oQbDTrVA04UWTLNEs7-weVCbbL120-W2ZzFkGCroUaZjdEy3hFcGyXkF7VOs" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br /> </p><p><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: large;">Sometimes I miss the daffodils</span>. Not miss them as in, "Why don’t they write?" (that's my dad's favorite quote from Dances with Wolves. I try to slip it into casual conversation when I can. Nobody ever gets it, so I laugh all by myself. Like now). No, I literally miss them, as in, didn’t notice that they pushed their determined emerald leaves up out of the cold, sleeping earth, shot a beautiful straight stem skyward, and burst forth with a ruffly, buttery yellow, utterly clean and perfectly formed bloom. </p><p>It’s kind of not my fault. The guy who planted them years ago put them on the backside of the house, where I seldom wander. Also, if a single raindrop falls on one of them, they melodramatically collapse under the ridiculous weight of it and lay on the ground sideways to bloom. They still bloom, but unless you have your nose at ground level you might not notice.</p><p>We actually managed to go outside Saturday and scrape together a few hundred branches that had distributed themselves around the property after the last big snowstorm (ha ha, big for us. Hey, a foot of snow is a lot if you’re expecting two inches). I didn't do much, as breathing is still hard. One round trip up the driveway with a loaded wagon was enough for me. As Natalie flitted around the yard pretending to work, she discovered that the daffodils had bloomed. I tasked her to gather any of them that had collapsed so that we could bring them in the house to enjoy.</p><p>She did, and I got my special Japanese style vase down (okay, who are we kidding? I’m too short to get it down. I called Adam, who I call “Tall Boy” when I need something that’s up high, or "Strong Boy" when I need something heavy moved, and he got it down for me. I do. I literally shout, “Tall Boy!” and he comes to my rescue. Such a good human).</p><p>I showed Nano the cool little spiky frog in the bottom of the vase that allows the blooms to stand upright, statuesque and lovely, and together we arranged them. Then I cleared off the counter, actually wiped it this time, and we admired our flowers.</p><p>And I had to focus. Just on the flowers. Because of course, the counters behind them were full of dirty dishes. As were the sinks. And the stove was messy. And don’t get me started on the nasty floor. Covid is a butt-kicker and the house is the kick-ee.</p><p>Yes, I had to focus very hard on the flowers.</p><p><img alt="" id="id_4fb4_9f00_63c9_4df8" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/obyDk1n7ksXw2Hs81tP6rjvyhztWev2Yk7CLzb0nWiekc-kUjhUYe8PZyfo2sLYzY34" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br /></p><p>Days are short. There will always be dishes to wash. I love all of you folks who always keep a clean sink. I admire you very much. You have figured out either a rhythm in your life or some boss parenting skills that I have yet to master. </p><p>I have to choose what I focus on. And in that moment it was flowers. As I did, I very literally felt a lightness come into my heart that invited the colors around me to be more lively, the fabrics and wood grain more interesting. It was like my surroundings were being put through an Instagram beauty filter. </p><p><img alt="" id="id_8b06_10e7_193b_558d" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/OtUSht_kjEbUbeLaydYGitYGtEHr1xvEO0Jvkop9lScy6U2gZ9XYkPLNoJS27AZH8lE" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br /><br />Resolve is fickle, and I will soon forget Saturday afternoon. I always do. Why do we have to learn the same lessons again and again... and again? I should overhaul the inspired prayer they recite in AA meetings and hang it on my mirror to remind me.</p><p style="text-align: center;">"God, grant me the strength to clean the things I can,</p><p style="text-align: center;"> the courage to leave the messes that aren't that important right now, </p><p style="text-align: center;">and the wisdom to focus on daffodils."</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-41649248120303247472022-03-13T14:08:00.000-07:002022-03-13T21:35:11.382-07:00Excavation<p><img alt="" id="id_336a_4624_218b_f827" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/tF2okbyM1T8fKRqMwNbnRHzHQotlzLSbndWyh1xPKwpXb4fqOYx8H3vaBcetk9D2p8U" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip=""><br><br>Six weeks of Covid does things to one's brain… I mean, <i>home</i>. Juicy spiders have set up permanent residences in high corners, and the tiny carcasses of itty bitty flies are piled up on window ledges beneath them. Laundry is figuratively and very literally piled up, and if Guy didn't do all the shopping, we would have gone full Donner Party over here by now. The kids, as kids will do, have taken full advantage of my somewhat reduced capacity to patrol the perimeter around here. I <i>certainly</i> hope the Queen doesn’t drop by.</p><p>Being sick has given me the opportunity to sit limply in a recliner, my head lolling to one side, and watch the canary feathers swirling in dust on the floor, fanaticizing over having enough energy to lay on my belly and cough them into a pile. That's sort of like cleaning, right?</p><p>I stood in the doorway this morning surveying the kitchen table, mentally replaying the all too familiar “mess soundtrack”; the one that identifies to whom each abandoned item belongs and practices a worn out parental lecture, including a not-so-gentle scold as I am forced to acknowledge ownership of several of the items myself. Such a tired old song, that one.</p><p>But then my eyes caught the eggs, or they caught me. I mean, the eggs were… pretty. They really were <i>just so lovely</i>, there in the window’s gentle blue light, that I got distracted from my usual rant - forgot the words to my discouraged and discourag-ing dirge. The hen’s eggs, with their greens, in two powdery shades, softly contrasting with the beiges and coppery browns, not to mention the precious speckled quail’s eggs. Did you know that if you pick up a sweet little quail egg right after it’s been laid, still all toasty-warm, the speckles will come right off on your fingers? You do now. I love the repetition of the shapes, and gosh they looked so magical in my handmade ceramic bowls. </p><p>The eggs put me in a funny little happy mood. I took a few pictures of them, and stood there smiling. </p><p>Then, there was <i>a pause</i>. </p><p>And with it, I suddenly noticed something. I began seeing every object on the table in that same thoughtful way. The table was like an archeological dig of the past few days. </p><p>First the eggs… well, we had recently retrieved those from a friend’s house who allows us to bring them home when we are attending her critters. There were the school books. Jonah was so good on Thursday helping Natalie stay on track when I needed to rest. Next to them were the clippers I used on Friday to give Adam a haircut. I have to admit, I kinda loved having a chance to help him. There aren't many opportunities like that these days. Young men don’t need much from their mamas after a while.</p><p><img alt="" id="id_fff6_f6a6_f038_9fe" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/mf-dftsjqhorGEjIY3R2fqenmrtX1IsjSdvukUUdSGYIfj6oWmXIe4QvAuL-_e9ekxI" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip=""></p><p>There was the times tables chart. We have been working on those dang things so hard lately. And then on top of a stack of writing journals sat Jonah's beautiful drawing. He's so intuitive. I am inspired by the markings that boy makes every time he picks up a pencil.</p><p><img alt="" id="id_611a_3c2_850_da15" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/qZjy-njvQdzZvE69UMc9rRx0yAJNN-qsU_Kuov0D7tQbTBi6W6pO7ahrt2JJ4P0LQxI" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip=""></p><p>There was the Halloween craft that Kathy and I worked on Wednesday. Sweet Kathy has come all the way out to our woods nearly every month since we moved here almost five years ago, and we craft together. It's how we commune with one another. It is a friendship built on the mutual love of texture and color and held together with mod podge and wood glue.<br><br><img alt="" id="id_1d35_d02a_c605_996d" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/EGF-L8zAGJRERQu3lTqcrCFsU6yinAt39CWeSbgY9mR6YPTwnQ_vLvG9FofGNkwLBwU" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip=""></p><p>Oh, gosh! And the spiders I made! The kids love them, so the sparkling arachnids have been joyfully, if not slightly creepily, traveling around the house in their glistening steampunky glory. <br><br><img alt="" id="id_91b_56b_99b9_2230" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/UA8s7ztVRYh3uqROX-QtkwXr90zDviMc69wQnxWyNjHKk2GPd65_kx5v9hDRxyo_Ljo" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip=""></p><p>Aw, then there was Minnie and Moo. Best book ever. Natalie has been reading it to me. Sorta. It's slow going. <i>Sooooo. Slooooow</i>. But it is funny, which helps me stay patient. And it reminds me of how hard-won the skill of reading has been in this household. Only two of our six <i>haven’t</i> struggled with reading. So, I have found ways to entertain myself in the many monotonous hours of sooooooound-iiiiiing oooouuut wuh-ooooords. God bless you, Minnie and Moo. </p><p>The ipad. Nano listens to ebooks constantly, which has given that little redheaded sprite a mighty vocabulary. It is <i>resplendent</i>.</p><p>The long bowl of legos, which has been in the center of the table for two months. It started out full back in January, but now there are robots and blocky creatures deposited all over the house, reminding me of how the kids will sit visiting around the table for hours, creating magic with their hands and bonds with their hearts. During a particularly intense two day sprint some weeks ago, Adam and Jonah built intricate weapons that could be loaded and cocked, all out of their imaginations. I hope Jonah will always remember sitting on the floor next to his brother for 16 hours making guns that can’t be fired.</p><p><br><img alt="" id="id_81e8_61b5_f624_4366" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/9h-XZEx8RB5VFJGpVGtSIlzCyrsZjdzLOzJoACY5vPcZ3SMMwVZBPGWAnRET6LHhq3c" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip=""></p><p>The bag in the chair. It’s full of 16+ bottles of medicines and supplements, waiting to be sorted into my pill box; a reminder of how hard I have been working to improve my autoimmune conditions. Yay me.</p><p>That messy table is almost like a cave drawing, or the excavation of a field where once, hundreds of years ago, vivid and important things took place. Lives were lived. Hair was trimmed, books were read, and meals were cooked and eaten, all around a table that no longer exists, in a house that no longer stands.</p><p>Therefore I must conclude, my friends, that this is not a messy table at all. It is an archaeological find of greatest significance.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-5631789478256484072021-09-13T00:59:00.006-07:002021-09-13T01:24:54.540-07:00Kindling <p> <img alt="" id="id_7e36_4c6_aeb6_9e51" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/g1GUFtpvXmD_-LBYziXkjVQxrnviOpM-IWLh_rgapp16uuriBJdbd1MwUww52nKvuN0" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip="" /></p><p><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: medium;">“What are you looking at?”</span> Jonah puzzled as I drove slowly down the driveway, leaning forward over the steering wheel, peering up at the brunches arching above the driveway to meet in the middle. </p><div>“Nothing,” I said. </div><div><i>Kindling</i>, I thought. </div><div><br /></div><div>The Caldor Fire had its point of origin less than 20 miles away, which seems far until you see how fast and how far California fires have been traveling the last few years. The fire is currently about 46 miles wide. By morning, it had gone from 100 acres to 300, then quickly to 700, then 2,000 by that night, which seemed crazy then, and now is minuscule. On one day it grew 8 times in size. At the time I write this, we stand at 219,267 acres, 65% contained.</div><div><br /></div><div>We woke Sunday morning to heavy smoke and fear. I got the kids up and had them pack. This is our first close-ish fire, and I wasn’t sure how concerned to be. It hasn't felt that long since I drove to Santa Rosa to evacuate our friend Joyce, not once, but twice, with a year off in between. The smoke had been so thick, there were times I was following the tail lights ahead of me, hoping that driver could see the road better than I could. The flames on the hillsides were terrifying, as were stories of whole neighborhoods consumed with no warning. The heartbreaking image my brain conjured of the elderly man who had held his wife in his arms in a neighbor’s swimming pool as the fire storm passed over them lingered with me for weeks. She didn’t make it. </div><div><br /></div><div>We piled our packs by the door and then began pulling photos from the walls -just the ones not saved digitally- and it felt strange to leave some of my babies' faces behind. I began to gather a few precious keepsakes, and gave each child a box for their special things. Standing in the dining room, staring at the table scattered with an eclectic collection of medicines, photos, books and ancient bud vases, I heard a squabble between Natalie and Jonah. </div><div><br /></div><div>“What’s wrong, guys?” </div><div><br /></div><div>“Natalie is trying to bring more toys,” Jonah fussed. </div><div><br /></div><div>I called them to me. Natalie came around the corner with a red, tear streaked face. “I’m not going to tell her no, Jonah,” I said. I looked into his face, and saw his rigid expression, the rims of his eyes also red. I gathered them in my arms and they both burst into tears. I called Tessa and Adam from the other room, and with the Littles still in each arm, I said, “I know this is really scary.”</div><div><br /></div><div>Tessa’s beautiful pale eyes filled with tears, which pushed mine over the edge. I looked to Adam, who ducked his head to hide that he had joined us. “Com’mere. Everybody.”</div><div><br /></div><div>I held the Littles, one on each side, and shuffled toward Adam, who was closest, beckoning Tessa over. I gathered them all in my arms together, more than a mama can hold, trying to pull myself together for them. “We can do this. It’s scary, but nothing bad is happening yet. And as long as we are together, it can’t, because you guys are all that matters. The rest is just stuff, most of it just hand-me-downs. </div><div><br /></div><div>"But this is a defining moment. No matter what happens, the most important thing right now is how we treat each other.” I wiped my cheeks and took a deep breath, then patted backs in the way you do when you are ready to move on. “Alright!" I said in a faked-cheery voice. "Let’s put some music on.”</div><div><br /></div><div>Guy called to check in. There had been way more than fire prep going on that morning. It was the day after Jonah's birthday, I was dealing with a legal matter, the dishwasher had broken, <i>again</i>, we had a mysterious water leak somewhere that was making the meter spin like crazy, and homeschool was to start the next day. "Do you want me to come home?" he asked in response to my trembly voice. "No. It's okay. It's just scary. It's a lot." He wasn't fooled.</div><div><br /></div><div>"I'm coming home."</div><div><br /></div><div>My heart settled down almost immediately. We powered through the next couple of hours, scooping up a tearful Ellie along the way. She had missed the family cry-fest earlier. “I’m not worried about me," she wept, "But you and Dad have been through so much, you don’t deserve this."</div><div><br /></div><div>"No one ever does, sweetie."</div><div><br /></div><div>We had calmed considerably by the time Guy made it home. He seemed a little distressed that I had let him come home when everything seemed just fine, but I assured him that knowing he was on his way home was the one thing that had helped me hold it together.</div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps the strangest part of the day had been walking around the house selecting what few items to keep. We had gathered the basics, along with the photos, hard drives and important papers. But then I was wandering. I gathered a little drawing by one child, knowing I couldn't grab them all. I cradled a special ceramic pot Guy had given me on our first anniversary, a few books that had been gifts from dad, and my mom's porcelain bird, in my hands. After a while, just thinking about it all made me <i>so emotionally tired, </i>that I just stopped caring. The "stuff" all blurred together; a roll of paper towels and an antique bowl both vying for equal attention. <i>Is everything special? Or nothing?</i> Ellie came in and said, "It's strange to see how much stuff I have, and how much of it I don't really care that much about." So true. And not.</div><div><br /></div><div>We weren't done, but we were <i>done</i>. It had been such a long, strange day. And stranger still than the random packing, was later cooking dinner and settling in for a movie that night. It felt like we should <i>go, </i>but there was no reason to. Yet. And we hoped there wouldn't be.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">****</div><div><br /></div><div>The following Saturday was spent on more concentrated outdoor fireproofing (which seems like a silly word, but I can't think of anything better at the moment. Fire <i>resisting</i>?). It's like shaving, No matter how good a job you do, you have to go back and do it all again later. We had been working on clearing the dead trees from our tiny-but-dense acre+ patch of woods (which seems a little pointless when you see the other folk's woods all around us that are just as bad as, or worse, than ours), but we shifted our efforts to tight clean up around the house to renew our defensible space.</div><div><br /><div><img alt="" id="id_2981_41dd_bb64_4918" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/dqv-6uZ8UioeGTvcAQ1vgHlVrYOxXFTSHjWsArsgCmPrxTILS7GoorUor6bJ-ULxTZE" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip="" /></div></div><div><br /></div><div>(The red arrow above points to me. Looks like I'm hiding, but I was scooting down the slope on my bummy, clearing it from above, and trying not to break my neck. It's steeper than it looks!)</div><div><br /></div><div><img alt="" id="id_b5e8_b322_5161_4b73" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/XMDS8VDy4VmIDhofni-Qrzq6asBB4yngfhJ9laJtkpel-Mksqn9CVneRnkxof_XD3NY" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br /><br />There's this ratty plant that grows everywhere here. I've heard it called deerweed, but it sorta looks like French broom, only totally dry and currently flowerless. This stuff would burn like a ghost pepper. It's scratchy and billowy and will grow right back when the rains come, but we cleared a whole slope of the stuff.</div><div><br /></div><div><img alt="" id="id_4737_c17d_f738_94e7" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/vOtC4hYzy1ch9KH1mr6dh80_MZ1Q2vkQSWM9ycq_vwv5LEDGqPDDJw9drpkfQLtUNeQ" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip="" /></div><div><br /></div><div>I have to mention here the awesome job Natalie did with these photos. She weighs as much as a pair of clippers and is, in most ways, a bit useless when it comes to work, because she can't stay on task for two minutes before she is off in her make-believe land. So I handed her my phone and told her to "document". Oh, boy, did she! And she got her dirty little finger on the lens, which created a strange, otherworldly glow. Add a little movement, and these pix remind me of ones of my dad from the 70's.</div><div><br /><img alt="" id="id_169_6aee_34_a8a6" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/oydSbU3g47l_58a77eYNyoS201NCyy6EurUHdzr2ux5GV4mcbNEvf1JnyZmjq7_arME" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip="" /></div><div><br /></div><div>You can't really tell, but Tessa is hauling a giant limb. Adam helped by cheering.<br /><br /><img alt="" id="id_7263_bda6_5763_8ce2" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/WBTAf_xn85SAzVHwtQvKQlyytdu4iy09pq9CTf4iz-DIO2plQwGKF8SHoHlNmytBKtU" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip="" /></div><div><br /></div><div>How big sticks become little sticks.<br /><br /><img alt="" id="id_f0fd_2c58_97b0_39ee" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/i7pDNyol2VH-q1GHnXuNdA-8feys2gIkBr2354vb7ISd5VdktkgsglN1ybcbeTchi3E" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip="" /></div><div><br /></div><div>Same slope as the deerweed pix above, minus a lot of fuel.<br /><br /><img alt="" id="id_1758_37dc_bd39_c65" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/vRA5Kof3lY-Em-QzsLIB9mswWtBaIO0EgggmHJTREqQCMEqgrMAkWMRQ5YecN7v9UmA" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip="" /></div><div><br /></div><div>We were told by the fire chief that if fire came our way, they likely wouldn't even attempt to come down our lane, what with all the trees leaning over the top, and it being the only road in or out. I get that. It never occurred to me at the time we bought the house, though. I just thought, "oh, what pretty trees." They are still pretty, but I'll admit my heart has changed, yet again, about living in these woods.<br /><br /><img alt="" id="id_1569_16cd_f93f_882c" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/b_7Fh9dTXsgMr8BBEEocx-RHz24oo8mBW0JSf6g-cL2Dvl60drZt82wWuOZOkApiBYU" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip="" /></div><div><br /></div><div>The Caldor fire is well controlled at our end, though I still check the stats and wind direction every night. And we pray. A lot. We had a touch of rain the other night, but I read that the lightning from it started eight new fires, requiring crews to be diverted from the main fire to put them out. Scary, scary, and more scary.</div><div><br /></div><div>I haven't put our special things back. There are a few bins by the door with our most precious belongings in them. I'm waiting, because it's still the beginning of fire season, and we're not out of the woods, yet.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">*************************</div><div><br /></div><div>Incredible thanks to all who have reached out to us with offers of help and lodging, and who have held us in their hearts and in prayer. We have such lovely friends. Glad we didn't have to take you up on those offers, but so grateful to have had them.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-57447055906292385962021-08-09T01:31:00.001-07:002021-08-09T02:31:33.392-07:00Restoration<img id="id_c216_9183_dcc5_9686" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/0NvJ1IIB0TeXqP6cDltabsfdc93u9z6J5Ikb7v4xXFScb9CTgD54sozoQcEdNwPXbmg" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br> <div>We have a little cabin. A very little cabin, here on our property. I believe that it was built to be lived in while the main house was being constructed. Later, a second room was added, then later still, the wall between the two rooms was removed to create a slightly larger space. It has been used for a workout room and a wood shop in the past, and when we moved here Adam slid in and made it his own. At the time, I had neither the time, the energy, nor the resources to fix it up for him, for which I will forever feel massive mother-guilt. He lived with spiders (which is pretty standard for here), lizards seeking warmer ground, and the occasional woodland mouse. </div><div><br></div><div> I’ve been feeling more energetic lately, and as long as that lasts, I’m going to ride the wave! Adam has been living in Utah for the last year and a half, and for the past couple of months the kids and I have been working on fixing up the cabin for guests to use when they come to visit us. In July we worked busily to try and fix it up for my dear Melissa and her family, but only got it part of the way finished. Then I had to paint a mural at the fairgrounds, which took up a couple of weeks. I thought I had more time to finish the cabin before Adam returned in late August to stay for a few months, however his lease ended sooner than he thought it would (due to bozos running the management office at his apartments, duh), so he returned home a month earlier than planned. Of course, I was thrilled to see him, but sad I didn’t have the cabin finished for him yet. Now that he’s here, he said he’ll help, so it’s not all bad!</div><div><br></div><div>In future posts I’ll share the progress of the whole space, but tonight I thought I would give you a little peek. Last week Tessa and I refurbished this little leather loveseat I got for 80 bucks from Marketplace. The loveseat was sturdy but dirty, and the finish on the arms and seats was pretty well worn right off. I bought some leather “balm“, expecting that it would be a conditioner with some tint to it, and was a little bummed at the intensity of the color. But it was 25 bucks, and I had already opened the jar, so on it went! I will still work on the finish, trying to get a little more of its former charm and character back, but the balm really did a great job at covering the old scuffs and damage. Sadly, the sofa was robbed of its beautiful aged leather patina, something that can only be granted to the best little loveseats by the ancient patina fairy.</div><div><br></div><div>Before:</div><div><br></div><div><img id="id_ae24_65af_92e_623" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/X6AARdNjPnn2-YKWa00MCfmMznFzee25sJat6uzL996ySDjAxNhNlo-dZdbkggZFDLs" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><br></div><div><br></div><div>After:</div><div><br></div><div><img id="id_6d4d_1b41_8d12_b07" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/RCFBePAS72u1N52FrgDPgD8t7p9Hda0SlXS3T1jtq6pvSZBcmuVtCvNW97tItzVFeH8" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br>Try to look past the patches of sunlight. It photographs a little better than it looks in real life, but I hope to get a visit from that patina fairy sometime soon as I work on it.</div><div><br></div><div>We will be tackling the floor this week. Wish us luck!</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>The cabin, when we first saw the house:</div><div><br></div><div><img id="id_4312_b4ed_a684_ae10" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/Dy7pkqbXE_aUl7DFIfhRsqTMtSlyYNAuiRj11MITuTP9ZUQkMwsC_AvnhuCYrQKs6pw" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><img id="id_56d_8029_416c_2de2" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/7gHcJjgUsSUgHTR-2boWF0LkxeYXYVvNkObAvN32asQwZpie_usFaKLVCNTLwInk8LQ" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><img id="id_9344_1a67_2209_192a" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/DVuiYjhwb8MkeOxSoFEH99xpfi6cQCnXVlEY9HIGKv44aWN3J2hx55HXFLYCeZYUnmc" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><br></div><div>July of this year, patching and painting:</div><div><br></div><div><img id="id_c735_ce43_902c_1003" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Y8ifYcenjp9u378_vXSrvgg-2gTEbRP_n54THr0GHOTwmTRG3B_YNF3oo9PR-FZPcyA" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"></div><div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">Leveling and patching the floor</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span><img id="id_93e0_2e2d_5f78_50" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/liYoVBNgDD1X3ESml-AUgxwl83ZnFCbqk6frx47FZjOcq3rLRwCgbwgbaaSKIvHWJvg" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><br></div><div><img id="id_f8a_bfb2_381_6604" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/fkCuubtg21hLcWWDwV0drAKc4ksYjy_UqbuD_wazBKUHJI2KDBPQISJ2edBXd2Dvs18" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br>More challenging with furniture in it!!!</div><div><br><img id="id_42e0_db6f_1bf0_7a5f" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/O2JVDDcS_r7zAir5lKZfLv-yS7CUaT4ifowSkTFHEuD_haIIuYZsAFWysbzKhcHXIhU" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br>Love the color! </div><div><br><img id="id_aaeb_67f0_87ff_b8c3" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/x2aeGW1xwLpRpgsJkDVSrDqg_OARrFn1VIuizXiYbyuyi-UyKAcLV16gZiU3xLKQkOo" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br>More to come!</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-14587226758894654672021-07-08T11:03:00.007-07:002021-07-08T11:26:45.519-07:00Unfiltered<div><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: large;"><div><img alt="" id="id_d993_4259_9cea_3b59" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/pZfhxkiTwrByTp2tC5B_nSDqpsAV-lHQkaObzgFdI05QtKlPF3gXL0RQYWwMh76seUc" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br /><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>A magical thing happened</span> a few weeks ago. On our family trip to the HOT states (because that is absolutely what they should be called; the North, the South, the East, the West, and the HOT) we <strike>drove</strike> sweated our way through Las Vegas, and there we had the amazing opportunity to visit with my dear friend and mentor, Sandra Hooven, lovingly known to me and several hundred, if not a thousand or more former students as Mrs. H. (tangent: in the many years I have taught art classes here and there, I have always introduced myself as Mrs. H, with a smile and a long-distance little nod, over both time and terrain, to the First and Best. <i>THE Mrs. H</i>.). I want to and will write about the trip, and our visit with Mrs. H, and some of the other really special people who made this such an incredible adventure, but my thoughts all started tonight with something Mrs. H. said when we were together: "I really used to love reading your blog."<div> <br /><i>Used to love</i>. Past tense.
And I loved writing it. And I miss it. I like what it brings out in my head and heart, and the way it challenges me to examine myself, the way I think and the way live my life. It challenges me to review my days and the words I speak, and to squeeze those days through a juice press and filter, many filters, to see what comes out the other end. </div><div><br /></div><div>When I first started writing my blog I thought I would use the format to anonymously float my thoughts out into the ether without consequence, but low and behold, after my very first "anonymous" post, I got a message about it from someone I knew. The smarty-pants internet had sent my friend a message; "Hey, your sneaky buddy Laine thinks she can write whatever she wants and get away with it! Why don't you pop over and say hi and give her a heart attack?"
It was my first lesson in social media (back before in the days before "friends" on Facebook began ruthlessly attacking grammar and life choices- lesson two, don't share if you care about it)). There is no anonymity online. Lucky for me I hadn't flown my freak flag too high yet during those first few posts, so it was just a wake up call; fortunately "no relationships were harmed in the making of this blog". </div><div><br /></div><div>Ever since, I have been doing that filter thing I mentioned. </div><div><i>What will my dad think if he sees a post about my childhood through my eyes? </i></div><div><i>How will my kids feel if I post about teenage angst and hormonal drama? </i></div><div><i>What will the folks at church think if I use 23 different terms to describe my breasts in one post?</i> (if you missed that one, go back and read it. I regret nothing.)</div><div><br /></div><div>All that filtering has blessed and hindered. But mostly hindered. I squeezed the last three years through the filter of, "Nobody is going to want to know how sick I am. It will sound whiny, and attention seeking, and also, I don't want pity comments." There are people in my life who boldly state their distain for people who "have to broadcast their lives on the internet", so there's that filter, too. I was even criticized for a photo I once posted with my feet up on the dash board during a road trip ("that's dangerous" they said. <i>Not as dangerous as another blood clot from my legs hanging down for hundreds of miles</i>, I thought). It made me start to question THE WAY I USE MY FEET. Duh, I tell you. Just, duh.</div><div><br /></div><div>Filter, filter, filter.</div><div><br /></div><div>And of course, you can't possibly anticipate all the ooble-dy-zillion ways your words will be processed by others. And if you are defensive about it, you shouldn't share, right? </div><div><br /></div><div>So I haven't posted. That's the long and short and scared of it. </div><div><br /></div><div>I just can't <i>physically </i>handle the confrontation, the correction, the judgement (and THAT, my friends, is a gene mutation thing, which I will over-share about later, and to which you will raise one dubious eyebrow, firmly square your jaw, and say in a British accent,<i> Is that a thing? Well, we always knew there was something a little off with her. </i>Like in those news interviews, when the neighbor says, <i>"Bodies in the basement, ya’ say? Well, I always 'spected there was somp'in wrong wiff Floyd").</i></div><div><br /></div><div>This week, Guy and I had a talk about plans for a future trip that didn't go super well (there's that busy filter again, W<i>ill Guy be mad that I hinted at marital disharmony? Should I hide that we have the only imperfect marriage in California?</i>), and in the aftermath, as I pulled at all the threads in the conversation to unravel where it had stepped off the happy track, I hit upon a powerful realization. Here it is as shown through many filters:</div><div><br /></div><div>I have Hashimoto's (hello, overshare much? Like, dude, we get it already. You're sick. Waa waaa. Move on). Everyone who has Hashimoto's experiences it differently, but for me it <i>deeply</i> impacts my ability to make and retrieve memories. Short term stuff is the hardest -in one synapse and out the other- but it turns out that another tricky type are memories that are 'similar to each other in nature'. For example, I am really excited about this RV trip we just took, partly because the memories are so unique. They stand out starkly against the backdrop of all the other vacation memories I have from the last (choke) 26 years of marriage. I mean, I remember our honeymoon (teehee). I remember the time we helped Kathi and her kids look for their lost dog in Colorado during a summer thunder storm while the cicadas screamed at a deafening pitch over our heads. I remember riding 4-wheelers through the Bone Yard with Jackie in Idaho, and floating in circles with Melissa at the Rec Center in Provo for hours. I remember playing Kettleball at Guy's parents 50th Anniversary/family reunion, and how all the ice cream was being left out to melt, and how I LOVE melty ice cream, and how I ate so much of it I nearly burst. But the memories of car travel, motels, stops at burger joints, all mostly blur together and then, heartbreakingly, disappear (the filter just told me there is really nothing special about this dilemma and I should delete this post! Dang filter!).</div><div><br /></div><div>One way I can keep my memories, I realized, is by making sure they vary from each other in the making (like maybe suggesting to my husband that we stay at Issis Oasis Egyptian Sanctuary instead of Travel Lodge, hello conversational misstep), and another is by writing them down. As I revisit them later, it is like writing over the top of fading pencil with a nice, thick, black ball-point pen. They become anchored, fixed, and easier to visit later.
So the battle I face now is writing unfiltered. Or less filtered. Maybe not full-pulp OJ, but certainly not pulp-free. Because I won't remember things if I water them down as I write about them. And who am I kidding? Only twelve of you read this anyway, and all twelve of you know what a goofball I am, and somehow love me anyway. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm starting to feel like I've told you all of this before, but I can't quite remember (the redundancy-alert filter just kicked on... robot voice: Bwoooop! Bwooop! A-lert! A-lert!). Also, it seems like I have posted about needing to write more A LOT, and it's feeling excusy. Yes, excusy.</div><div><br /></div><div>The filters just told me that maybe they are not really filters at all, and that I am just insecure. Wow, they are so mean sometimes. But maybe they're right.</div><div><br /></div><div>Back in the early days of the blog, I would write each post directly to a few people in my mind, specifically because I always felt loved by them, more sure of myself, and like they just loved anything I wrote -Jackie, Rebekah, Steph, who I sure miss. Jackie's sisters, all of them. That one anonymous person who always reads my blog with in minutes of me posting (I love you so much, whoever you are! I seriously say "Hi!" to you when that little notification pops up).</div><div><br /></div><div> And now, Mrs. H. </div><div><br /></div><div>So here's to you, and here's to living life unfiltered.</div><div><br /></div><div>*the photo above happens to be unfiltered, because they don't make a filter that gets rid'a old!</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-61749313944294630302021-03-08T00:08:00.004-08:002021-03-08T09:57:57.125-08:00Timing<div><img id="id_c4b3_617d_c6a4_be7b" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ouBW1fs1lZTjFyjq-56uR-7T96VmZ_GkvGO-5MxmN6FlW4YTK6HApPY4FIw4KL4j7eo" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br></div><div><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: large;">Sometimes the timing </span><span style="font-family: times;">is <i>juuuust </i>right</span>. Or just, <i>right</i>. I don’t know if you can feel the subtle difference there, but I can.</div><div><br></div><div>Nine years ago, I participated in an art show called the 20/20. Twenty paintings by each of twenty artists, displayed throughout a gallery in Midtown, Sacramento for one month. I was super excited when I got in. The workload was very heavy, but wow, what growth! What a great opportunity to push myself! Individual artist's pieces were hung together in large grids, and participants were actually required to submit twenty-five paintings so that there would be back-ups in case works sold off the wall. No gallery wants a big gap up there.</div><div><br></div><div><a data-original-attrs="{"data-original-href":"https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJRX8lmi45XgAjGtJ45n_IW0LLrG7luzbFGhLt0SH_65wHuur9knzGXnPz_c1QvchKC3BoeKk7FVZlz8g7EjgufBEDQSNbl1umSc22kVXEJp05WeQmEMdp3q3a9MM_7OjTGo5tDtXheqM/s1600/2012-5+Gallery+Show%2521+036.JPG","style":""}" href="#" style="text-align: center; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJRX8lmi45XgAjGtJ45n_IW0LLrG7luzbFGhLt0SH_65wHuur9knzGXnPz_c1QvchKC3BoeKk7FVZlz8g7EjgufBEDQSNbl1umSc22kVXEJp05WeQmEMdp3q3a9MM_7OjTGo5tDtXheqM/s400/2012-5+Gallery+Show%2521+036.JPG" width="400" style="cursor: move; width: 400px; height: auto;" id="id_c884_eab2_10fd_8c8b"></a></div><div>(Paintings from the 2012 show)</div><div><br></div><div>But a lot has happened in nine years... Natalie, clots, selling-then-buying a house, moving to a far off land (cuz, yah, an hour can be far), two promotions for Guy with accompanying challenges, two sons moving out, caring for dad and his passing, and good old Hashimoto's. Art took a big step back. Like, back to the garage part of my brain.</div><div><br></div><div>But recently it stepped back up, and said, "<i>hey! Hey you! Remember me? I make you happy. Move over a skootch and make some room for me.</i>" I began to think about the 20/20 show, and to wonder if it was still going on. Not three weeks later I received an email from the gallery inviting me to apply again.</div><div><br></div><div><i>Just </i>right.</div><div><br></div><div>Do you ever get a little ping in your heart? Like, a soft little elevator-door-opening-sound that says, <i>yup</i>, or, <i>ooooh, yah, baby...</i>? It was like that, only less creepy. The email made that little *<i>ping</i>* in me (I hope you are saying it in your head with the right sound. Don't you dare just read "ping" like Kevin Costner is narrating your shopping list (he is by far the most boring narrator on the planet, and not just of shopping lists). Together, now: *ping!*</div><div><br></div><div>Just, <i>right</i>.</div><div><br></div><div>I printed the application and let it sit around here for a couple of weeks, pondering. I had to come up with a theme. </div><div><br></div><div>My usual painting theme is, "Because That's What I Felt Like Painting Today. Duh." Probably that would not have gone over well with the guest judges. The application said I needed a <i>theeeeeme </i>to tie all my works together. I think last time I just made some lame thing up, like "Crap Around My House" without using the word crap.</div><div><br></div><div>I started really praying about what I -should, could, would want- to paint TWENTY FIVE paintings about. I settled on making black and white hand carved s'graffito tiles (yes, that's a real word) and let that be the connective thread. I did one (if I do say so...) gorgeous tile. It took a booty-long time and I didn't get it fired in time (teeth stuff, darn it). I realized there is no way I could make twenty four more in less than two months. Nuh-uh.</div><div><br></div><div><img id="id_6be7_9dc1_cb58_fab6" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/sBcSqos5B9HZn4OEJLyw5A3Hezx5eF7GdnFyvMDAJOiXxIivNY89LKyYCjM4_Ena4Lo" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br></div><div><br></div><div>Back to the drawing board (bwaaa-hahahaha, no, stop, I'm killing me) (but it was a painting board so now the joke isn't even funny). I pondered my life's experiences and wondered if I should tap into some of the darker chapters. Nope. Didn't feel right. Humor? Figures? Still-lifes? (that looks funny, and spell check is scolding me, but no, we don't paint 'still-lives', like sedentary old people. It's still-lifes. Still looks weird, though).</div><div><br></div><div>I finally prayed that God would help me paint something that would honor Him. In that moment a picture I had seen online popped into my head. It's of a little black and white bird with a golden breast, a warbler, that is mentioned in the book, "My Side of the Mountain". Jonah is reading it to me now. It's slow going, much harder than the last book, but boy - that kid is a trouper. So I said, "Okay, Lord," and that night I started painting.</div><div><br></div><div><img id="id_503c_599b_5933_2a69" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/42TJAqJSutjhuR0LJuQwMpim1X5If8Qc01BVekn1W-VE9offnAijPJRhvPrKRR3egOo" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><br></div><div>I went through the usual agony of my process, which includes plenty of self doubt and a little bit of loathing (<i>why am I doing this? I suck at this! Who am I kidding? Nevermind, I won't apply</i>), and finally got through it.</div><div><br></div><div><img id="id_a83c_8e82_2c5_160e" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/ryOL8E6bH7IivNpY2UT0cYSdWy-IVntEUEW0xgJIqj_0hbh1e8ZzwDBj6r7ux4QksDE" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br></div><div>I drove to Sacramento Friday afternoon. I was all jittery and shaky, even though I knew I was just dropping the painting off, and probably it would be some employee who took it and set it to the side with an unenthusiastic thank you, and that the judging wouldn't be till at least Monday, and that the worst they could say was that it was trite and kitsch and lacked sophistication (nothing I hadn't already said to myself, and I wouldn't be there to hear them), and then I would get a call Tuesday that said thank-you-for-applying-we-went-a-different-direction-but-please-consider-trying-again-next-year, goodbye. Why be nervous?</div><div><br></div><div>I stepped into the gallery but the front desk was empty, and I could hear voices in the back. I wandered a little heavy-footed through the space (<i>hello! I'm here!</i>) and then returned to the front. Eventually, the muffled conversation lulled and a head popped around the corner. It was the gallery owner, Misha (or Michael - his card says both, and I'm scared to get it wrong so I just said <i>hi!</i>), who recognized me a little, or is a good faker. My application sat on top of my small painting, which felt like a little kindness it was doing for me, hiding my probably-shameful painting for a few moments more. We made chit chat as he looked over my paperwork, then he pulled it aside to see the painting. He gave a tiny gasp and softly said, "Oh, my God, that's beautiful". </div><div><br></div><div>Instant relief. I was high. Just high. I floated a little, while he said that since he is not on the selection committee, he couldn't say, of course, but that if he <i>were, </i>he would certainly let me in the show, and that he imagined I would have no problem getting in. </div><div><br></div><div>I only have to wait a few more days, and after waiting for cancer test results three times this year, I hardly care. No. Big. Deal. Perspective, right? I let myself have the night off and met my sweetie for dinner and a tootle through Hobby Lobby, which is an awesome date night these days. But rather than wait to find out if I got in, I am going on a little hope, and last night I started the next few paintings. After all, if I do get in, I only have 55 days to get it all done. Timing, you know.</div><div><br></div><div>One down, twenty-four to go.</div><div><br></div><div><img id="id_da43_64f2_cbc_2a5e" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/C-tCiDA8EP6zwn77agZAZjn8PINGuuQBBtIycjjLm8kxPfufzIVUnlu0i_armUTm-yw" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><br></div><div><a data-original-attrs="{"data-original-href":"https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGUkhovAPJV76Hei5-ab81D5v5i058_dx3SxqNwbcndlGruaSVlni0ofliXfi_DKIyqMYe4Xq5MdLh73Evh_tX-2S45ODOjZSzKwSey8p8iYqCmDZbyt0GQdu0cpPOGOqokpcZcGt_Aao/s1600/2012-5+Gallery+Show%2521+005.JPG","style":""}" href="#" style="text-align: center; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGUkhovAPJV76Hei5-ab81D5v5i058_dx3SxqNwbcndlGruaSVlni0ofliXfi_DKIyqMYe4Xq5MdLh73Evh_tX-2S45ODOjZSzKwSey8p8iYqCmDZbyt0GQdu0cpPOGOqokpcZcGt_Aao/s640/2012-5+Gallery+Show%2521+005.JPG" width="480" style="cursor: move; width: 480px; height: auto;" id="id_6265_fb55_31b8_ddaa"></a></div><div><br></div><div><a data-original-attrs="{"data-original-href":"https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZvIDIFuEjWqdH0AAC2ZbXyrPN3yqRHCyaxGS7wkM7FM_4BN2NThfLtESX4v8OqJZoQI65jhHdj92w_eW1lskBt1h30f_Tf1BXLOoNOydP-nqeSeuNXAWKRTOphuX0iUM9taUI79PWqKM/s1600/2012-5+Gallery+Show%2521+010.JPG","style":""}" href="#" style="text-align: center; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZvIDIFuEjWqdH0AAC2ZbXyrPN3yqRHCyaxGS7wkM7FM_4BN2NThfLtESX4v8OqJZoQI65jhHdj92w_eW1lskBt1h30f_Tf1BXLOoNOydP-nqeSeuNXAWKRTOphuX0iUM9taUI79PWqKM/s400/2012-5+Gallery+Show%2521+010.JPG" width="400" style="cursor: move; width: 400px; height: auto;" id="id_3159_7d7b_a373_c8b"></a></div><div>The last 20/20 in 2012 please don’t let her know how much weight she will gain in the next nine years!</div><div> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-52688501753192359872021-02-21T23:36:00.001-08:002021-02-23T13:49:24.598-08:00Of Mountains and Molehills <p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-1bfaee3a-7fff-48ee-6a25-614881e0d769" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img id="id_5cbf_d8a_aa4e_91dc" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/uGRPtllSHRdyc1TLAHo71mi8XGY5HprMFC6PVawz9i0UsYkIuar4Vp0wWzhJEMPdrsw" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"></span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-1bfaee3a-7fff-48ee-6a25-614881e0d769" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><br></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-1bfaee3a-7fff-48ee-6a25-614881e0d769" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Gather round, darlings! If I recall correctly, I promised you a boobie story. I shall not disappoint. Though you may want to get a snack first, cuz’ this may take a while (haha, that will be funny later). In this story, my dangling participles will be played by </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">themselves</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">. As for the role of me, please cast a slightly more endowed Julia Roberts in your mind, but don’t tell her. I couldn’t afford the royalties.</span></span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">First, Honeybuns, before we begin, you must know a simple fact. I have lovely chesticles. I do. They are not perfect by any anatomical stretch - one looks Southeast, the other Southwest - and they lack the melon-like moundedness of my younger years, but they host a classical cleavage that any Roman statue would envy, and Ms. Barbara Streisand herself, possessor of </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">THE </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">most lovely cleavage on planet earth, might just nod in approval were she to glance my handsome hills and voluptuous valley.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Alas, now that I am no longer breastfeeding, only one human has the routine privilege of viewing my modest maidens (lucky Guy, that lucky guy), if you don’t count the occasional doctor. That was, until I turned 50.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">50 is the magic age at which the medical world collectively agrees that: 1. You will now begin to dismantle and disintegrate, piece by rusty piece, at an ever increasing trajectory, and 2. They will announce said deterioration to you on a semi-annual basis by beginning every sentence with the preamble, “Now that you are over 50...”. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cancer screening has become the new pass-time. There have been many. Usually, they’re pretty straightforward; a simple needle into the neck, the typical swabbing of pink parts, a camera where a camera should never, </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">never </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">go. But this time, when they suspected breast cancer, they got out the big guns. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">First came the industrial mammogram. This isn’t the little cutie they use for the beginners. This one employs giant plates that could crush an old car, run by a severe woman who was raised by the descendants of Gengus Khan, on mountain goat milk she squoze herself.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Starting well above the shoulder and dragging all my skin from the chin down along with it, she began pressing my bucksome blobs into oblivion. But by far the best moment of the entire affair was when, not once, but twice, work</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">MEN</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> walked in during my partially nude photoshoot. Tool belts and all. Apparently, the exam room had, until recently, been used as a thoroughfare and a storage space. Folks had gotten accustomed to passing through as a shortcut to a parallel hallway. However, on </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">this </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">particular day, it had become an exam room once again, only no one thought to tell Hank and Roy. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When the </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">first </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">fellow walked in (yes, sweet cheeks, they came in separately), I was, as you can imagine, FLAT OUT shocked. Only, I’m not flat, and my “</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">they” </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">were definitely OUT. So was he; he dashed out of the room with his clipboard as a face shield like he was taking fire in Nam. But by the time the </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">second </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">fellow sauntered through (ya’ saw that guy coming, didn’t you?), I was irate. AYE AYE AYE RATE!</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> “It’s OK! It’s OK!“ The technician placated in a thick accent from a country where apparently all breasts are the property of the commonwealth. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">NO! It is most certainly </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">NOT </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">O-K</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">! It’s not </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">OK</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> with me at all! Look, I am not a shy girl, but I reserve the right to decide</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to whom</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I show my Girls, and I did NOT choose </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">them</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">!“ (for the A-types in the audience, formal complaints were made and wimpy apologies given. Of course.)</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Later, when the results of this second mammary-mashing were “concerning”, it was decided that one of my poor little lady lobes needed a looksie from the </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">inside</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. However, because I was on blood thinners, I was prepped three times on three different days </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">for</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the procedure before I actually was able to go </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">through</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> with it. Risk of internal bleeding and whatnot. Geez. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Note, if you are the woozy-ish type, this is where you skip down to the last paragraph where we “look back and laugh”. Well, you might laugh. I might not. Too soon. Too soon. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I sat gowned-up in a waiting nook in the hallway, with all my crap in a bag beside me, pretending I cared about the magazine in my lap, avoiding eye contact with passers-by, and waiting for my turn on what I had been boastfully told was their “New, state of the art, Stereotactic Core Biopsy machine”.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Cue ominous, suspenseful music…)</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here’s the drill (pun so very intended)… (please read this part in the chipper voice of the the narrator from <i>How Stuff Works</i>):</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They lay you down on a funny table with a hole in it, which sounds cozy but is totally </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. They suspend one of your tender twins through a hole in the table with an arm up by your head, with its sweet sibling sort of smashed along side of you. They try to arrange your limbs all akimbo so that you can tolerate being in this position for “just 45 minutes”. Of course, that doesn’t count the time for adjusting, or to identify the biopsy spot, etc. But let’s pretend it’s 45 minutes. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(This is where the storyteller starts giggling, because </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">she </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">knows the </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">end </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of the story, and you do not yet. Estimated time-frames are cute and super arbitrary.)</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Next, they raise you up like a car on a mechanic’s lift so everyone can see under your chassis, then they kick on the booby smasher (yes, the table has one too!). Your face is pressed into the table blocking your view from your sweet little peach, so you can’t see what is happening, but </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">OH, honey</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, you know. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You. Know.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Now a random stranger with cold hands and no conscience is down there (maybe the maintenance man? Who knows!?), holding your fleshy friend like a wet rag that they are trying to wring water out of. They twist one way and then another, then close the peach-press, take a picture, twist again, smash, take a picture, twist again, smash, take a picture…</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This continues until they believe they have their target lined up </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">juuuust riiiiight</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The reason being, they have to avoid major blood vessels while still navigating to the source of the concern to biopsy it, and everybody’s road map is different. Because of the blood thinners, it was particularly important that no major blood vessels get nicked; risk of hemorrhaging, yada yada. Finally, someone official is satisfied, and then they tighten the vice beyond all human tolerance. I guess this is in case of an earthquake that might somehow jiggle your jello jug loose from the vice. They know it’s tight enough when your toes curl and your eyes bulge. You are told NOT TO MOVE as though the earth’s orbit depended on it. Repeatedly.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A lot of clunking and cold wiping later, and some little voice from somewhere out there in the vastness casually says, “little sting”, while simultaneously unleashing a murder hornet on your pretty pressed pillow. They numb you up at the point where the tools are to invade your person, and then they begin what can only be described as </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">drilling</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a core sample to Antarctica</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Picture shoving a drinking straw through a watermelon and pulling out the fleshy section that gets jammed inside the tube. It’s not as big as a drinking straw, of course, more like a pencil lead, but being that I usually keep my fleshy bits on the INSIDE of my body, this process could be defined as FREAKING DISCONCERTING. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Most </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">fortunately, you are all numbed up for this part. But not to worry, little chickadees, you will get to feel it </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">aaaaalllll later,</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> when the drugs wear off.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anyhoo, as they work, they remove a sample, leave you in the vice grip on your face, go into another room, examine the sample under a microscope, make sure they got what they were hoping for, and then perhaps come and get some more (of course, you know that means they came and got some more!). Then, once they have what they were looking for, they drop what is called a “clip” into your Gucci bag; a tiny metal marker that is left behind in the location where they removed the biopsy sample. This is so that, if results come back as cancerous, they know </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">exactly </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">where to head to find the location of the cancer (no, you do not get to set off airport alarms. Dangit). No guessing. This is precision machinery, people! </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pretty smart, of course. That is, if </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">your </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">fancy machine is working on Tuesdays. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Turns out,</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> on the day that I was there</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, (do I need to say it? Can’t you already tell what’s coming? You can, because YOU my friend, are smart) </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">their</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> machine suddenly... broke. Yes, broke, like an elevator stuck between floors with a panicked passenger imprisoned within, only in this scenario our prisoner is my tender torso tuber!</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let’s just say things got pretty dicey from there. The marker wouldn’t drop. Try, and try, and try as they may, (and by “may”, that gentle, passive word that makes it seem like they were only </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">considering </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">it, like a polite British museum tour guide, when the word most certainly is </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">DID, </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">like a New York cab driver) the white coat brigade could not get the marker to drop. Discussion was had. The new hoped-for solution was trying a part from a </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">different </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">machine. State-of-the-art, my friends. So I layed there whilst they went to rustle up spare parts from the </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">old</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> machine, all the while, the auger remained embedded deeply in my sad little pec sack. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Alas, alas, my patient reader, Clip Dropper Number Two was faulty as well. Now, when medical personnel have an idea that they don’t want a patient to know about, they think it is very clever to speak in a code that only edjumacated doctors and nurses can understand. What they don’t realize, is that it is the </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">same code </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">moms and dads use when talking about waiting till the kids are in bed to have ice cream because there’s not enough for everyone, and parents have first dibs because Darwin said so (look it up). It sounds like this: “Hey, after they… do you want…? There’s only enough…” but in doctor talk it goes like this: “Hey, what if we extend the… then maybe it will…” </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nothin’ makes me sit up and take notice (or lay really still to protect the earth’s gravitational pull on the moon) like someone talkin’ secret mom-code around me. I then followed the process carefully as I heard <i>and felt</i> them take a third sample, or, in layman’s terms, DRILL OUT MORE OF MY MOMMYGLAND.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yah. Didn’t work. More technical tool talk was had, and the words “manual drop” floated to the surface of the jargon jar. Now, I don’t know about you, but for me, nothing instills confidence like the professionals abandoning their precision robots to </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">do it the old fashioned way.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the meantime, we’ve been going on a couple of hours in the face-down, spine-arched, smashed-face position. My knees and shoulder were aching, my lower back was killing me, my neck was sore from being twisted to the side, and I was repeatedly told to “hold still“ every time I tried to create some modicum of comfort by moving just a millimeter or two. It felt like they had forgotten that a living person was </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">literally attached</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to the machine they were fussing over. I began to weep. Quiet tears rolled down my cheek as the white-coats continued to discuss strategy like football coaches on the sidelines.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At some point, a nurse realized that there was a tearful human being growing out of the little white whale they had harpooned. With a puzzled tone, she simply asked, “What’s wrong?”</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What’s wrong?! I have a javelin through my left labradoodle and you guys can’t get it out! You can’t figure out your marevelous “State of the Art” machine, you won’t let me move, the medicine keeps wearing off and I have no idea when or how I’m going to get out! </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> OH. AND BY THE WAY. YOU ARE LOOKING FOR CANCER!!!</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yah, I didn’t say all that then, but now I wish I had. Somewhere in the room, the code-talker asked, “What should we do with...?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Throw it away.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yah, sample #3, the one they took to try to jog the machine went... in the red bin. They didn’t even offer to let me take it home (what would I do with it??? I don’t know! Bury it, float it down the creek on a raft for a tiny Viking funeral! Anything but the garbage. Grrr). </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finally, the clip was “dropped”. Two and a half hours from the time they put me in the can crusher, I was finally done.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But OH HO HO HO NO!!! Hold the cell phone, sister, I wasn’t! (I’m so sorry. Yes, there’s more. If you need a break, I understand. It’s a lot to process). It turns out that after a breast biopsy, they need to do a </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">follow up</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">mammogram </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">immediately to discern the </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">exact</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> location of that thar’ lil’ marker; sort of a “before” pic for later comparison.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Also, they want to see if you have any unmacerated mammary matter left. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When it was all well and truly over, they bandaged my little blowhole better, wrapped my chest in ace bandages and ice packs, and sent me out to the waiting room to my poor husband, who was perplexed at how long it had taken. Apparently, no one had bothered to tell him what was going on. Not the first time this has happened (like seriously. One time he thought I died in surgery when it was hours long and no one bothered to come tell him why). </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On the way home, I held my chest tightly over every bump in the road as feeling returned to my little buddy, and felt sorry for everyone who has ever, EVER had any sort of work done on her bosom friends. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like, and blessedly, I didn’t have to. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Results were negative. No cancer. Blessed boobies. No insult to go with their injury. And while I am indeed grateful, it certainly was one of those mountain-out-of-my-molehills situations. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, that’s my boobie story. I know it was long, but not as long as the procedure itself, so now you have time to go make a sandwich. Oh, and for those of you who are deeply, I say, </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">DEEPLY</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> offended by the voyeuristic verbiage in this post all about my she-vage, I can </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">only say, </span><i style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Darlings, don’t you know me by now? I always keep my promises. </i></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-91324840870556637122021-02-03T16:49:00.001-08:002021-02-04T00:19:54.470-08:00 Outplant <div><br><img id="id_f1a6_82a7_3f87_901e" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/xoQRlZX1uUWDu-SKM-Z8dvFExeGN4-dnEac9cbPonINn5EehkvrbnhISaaNj4fQ" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br></div>I gotta admit, even with my history, I never imagined I’d actually lose the implant. <div><br></div><div>I went for a quick recheck, since the abscess wasn’t resolving. Before I knew what was happening I was texting my husband that they were doing surgery. Once Dr. A. got in there, the news was grim. The infection had moved fast and destroyed the bone around the implant. He removed the infected tissue and bone, and my long, long awaited implant. </div><div><br></div><div>There will be no redo. No second chance. The doctor felt a second go would be unwise. He said in his experience, some things happen for a reason. I have to trust him, as I have for 18 years now. But I’m not going to pretend I’m not disappointed. Crushed. I have waited anxiously for 8 years, and I was so excited. In five minutes it was all gone. </div><div><br></div><div>I’m letting myself be sad today. And maybe tomorrow. </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-4233334395559314852021-01-31T23:18:00.003-08:002021-02-03T10:28:01.157-08:00The OTHER Kind of Implants<img alt="" id="id_8c97_e768_3822_cb1a" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/EjhXDOWoAVGllAfeFvXGzHZcV8HArm46F6RzkROSIbsAGocp5TFg4whgwUD44Bc" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip=""><br><br> <div><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: large;">I got an implant.</span> No. Not that kind. My girls are of ample size, thank you. Plus, only one implant is a little pointless unless you stand sideways all the time. My friend, Denise, and I used to joke that we could only afford one surgery between the two of us, so we would each get one side done, and that would be our "show boob". But I digress. You should expect nothing less.</div><div><br></div><div>Uh oh. I lost a few of ya there, didn't I? What with all that naughty, boobie talk. Don't worry. The rest of this post will be squeaky-clean and somewhat appropriate. Ish.</div><div><br></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">My implant was for a tooth. I have been waiting almost exactly 8 years for it. When I was preggers with Natalie, one of my close-to-the-front, never-smile-in-public-again teeth broke right off. It had been a really rough week. In fact, that day I wrote on Facebook:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">"I'm overwhelmed. In the past 3 weeks I handled the cracked radiator, the broken starter, the crashed dryer, the fried washer, the speeding ticket (I never heard of a Senior Citizen Zone before!), 2-3 doctor or dentist appointments a week since the beginning of December, Ethan's toe surgery complications, gestational diabetes run-amok, a house full of sick people, tests for the mystery "mass" in Tessa's gal bladder, and constant negativity from Kaiser, but tonight when my front tooth broke off I think I may have reached my limit. I am tryin' real hard to stay positive here, but this is getting old."</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span></span></div><div><i>BWAAAHAHAHAHA!!!!</i> Wasn't she cute, that funny, naïve girl that wrote that?!... who, in just five short days, would start crankin' out three foot long blood clots like pancakes on a Saturday morning? How adorable that she thought a washer, dryer and radiator were things to get upset about. A broken tooth? Ha! Child's play, daaaaah'ling. </div><div><br></div><div>Slow-forward 7.92 years, after multitudes of financial, health and covid delays, and here we are, me, with a big lovely hole in my bone, stuffed up all tight with a fine metal screw (that felt quite like it would split my head in half going in). But wait... have you met me? Do you know that for some reason x-ray machines break down in my presence? That not one, not two, but THREE doctors have told me I was "the hardest ____(fill in the blank)____" in their career? Pleased ta' meet ya' (there's a boob story in there, but I have shocked you quite, yes <i>QUITE</i> enough for one evening. I'll tell ya later. Remind me).</div><div><br></div><div>Yah, so, "unusual response" were the words used to describe the two weeks of kicked-in-the-face style pain radiating from tooth to nose to cheek to eye socket to temple -and in a southward direction- from tooth through throat and neck from the new implant. "Most unusual" is how one would lable the abscess that formed on day 14. Gross is more to the point. I'll spare you the ewie details. My family has not been as lucky. I am a <i>very </i>descriptive girl.</div><div><br></div><div>But, as we often say around here, "It's not a blood clot", so it ain't so bad. Thank the Good Lord above for inspired medicines that I can take (sadly, because there goes my gut biome for a while). It could be worse. I'm praying I don't lose the implant. Yes, we are praying, and it will probably be fine.</div><div><br></div><div>Cuz it's not a blood clot.</div><div><br></div><div><i>Ok, so now who wants to hear a boob story...?</i></div><span id="docs-internal-guid-678b20c3-7fff-1de4-992e-fdfd1080c6f4"><br></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-82833725822162643942021-01-17T23:28:00.000-08:002021-01-18T18:55:21.304-08:00The Last Bed<img alt="" id="id_a7f5_cf3d_ea4_3cf7" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/asz9DM8ww3Ml4xQF82kiER4sb9x9lhntKpSwDi_Am9pRdRdhTrG3TVPqWkQ2x9Q" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip=""><div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); font-family: courier; font-size: x-large;">I knew it would come</span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"> eventually. Dad's had a bad heart since way back when I was in college, when he started having heart attacks, and he’s had two just this year. Add to that his many other health problems and 85 years of living, and we knew his time was coming. But I guess things can still sneak up on you.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div>On a Tuesday, Dad had been upstairs to celebrate Adam‘s birthday with us. It was so sweet, and he had stayed a long time. Thursday he hadn’t felt up to coming upstairs for Thanksgiving. By Monday he was on hospice. </div><div><br></div><div>When the young fellow from the medical supply company came that night to set up the adjustable hospital bed, I couldn’t help but think about it being the last. The last bed Dad would sleep on in this earth life. </div><div><br></div><div>I can’t imagine how many there have been; Montana where he was born, a dozen or so stretching from San Diego to Northern California, and many more around the country used on trips, a few in Mexico even, not to mention Mother Earth, his mattress and pillow for a hundred nights under the stars. </div><div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div><img alt="" id="id_a94d_3d5e_c7c3_96e4" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/KgSKQcP7jnxFyFVIMaUL4YdhBovZtAD3BRNHL1AlNxJl2JrHp7amSrBs0fJPTuE" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip=""></div><div><br>He didn’t use it long. </div><div><br></div><div>I had been sleeping on a borrowed cot in his room for a few nights to be close for when he needed me. The first few days were a struggle, as we worked on balancing the medication to relieve his pain. One day in particular had been terrible. He was in so much pain, and though as a doula I am well trained to physically deal with someone in this state, my words failed me. Digging deep into my mental tool kit, I came up empty. When a mama is in labor, I tell her the pain will be gone in less than a minute, and then she can rest. <span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"> I tell her that soon her prize will be here, and the pain will be gone. I remind her the pain is worth it; it's bringing her new joy to her waiting arms.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">I had no carrot to dangle, no promise of relief, no light at the end of the tunnel for my dad. We just rode the waves of his pain together for hours, me trying every position and comfort measure I knew, him tolerating it for 30 seconds or so before needing me to switch it up. When the hospice meds finally came though, I had collapsed in relief to see him settled and pain free.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">On his last night, by 3am I was well worn out. Guy and I had sat up with him for hours into the night, listening as his breathing became more and more labored, but still he fought on. He didn't want to go, and he was working hard to stay. I finally began to fade and longed for my cot, but I couldn't let myself be that far away, so I pushed it up to the side of dad's bed. I laid my head on his mattress and held my hand on his arm. I whispered to him, "Dad, I'm so tired. I am going to take a little nap. I'm sorry if I'm asleep when you need to go." I drifted, listening to his heavy, rhythmic breaths.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">An hour or so later, I suddenly awoke. Strangely, Guy, who was sleeping in the recliner near by, woke as well. It was the quiet that had called us out of sleep. "I think he might be gone," I told Guy, feeling my dad's skin, but noting how warm he was. I couldn't be sure. When Mom passed, she would only take a breath or two every minute for a while. He might still be here. Ellie and Tessa had wanted to be there when Grandpa left, so Guy went to get them. As he headed out of the room, Dad moved his jaw a few times, and I calmed at the awareness that I had not been asleep when he left. I sat holding his hand, staring, and waiting for the next breath. </span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">But there was none. </span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">That movement had been the last thing he would do in this life. The hospice nurse told us later that it is quite common. "The will to live is so strong," she said, "they try to take just <i>one</i> <i>more breath</i>." By the time the girls came in with Guy, I said simply, "He's gone." I had tried to feel for a pulse and listen with the stethoscope, but it's hard to know if you are just in the wrong spot, or if the silence is exactly that; silence.</span></div><div><br></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Dad passed away in the hours just before dawn on Friday, barely four days after his bed had come. There is something so strange in that kind of silence. And things tricked me in the hours after. Dad's overweight dog has quite a snore, and it kept fooling me. I would reach to touch him as I passed his bed. My drive to care for him kept calling me back on duty. </span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">The sweetest nurse came and tended to my dad before he was taken away, and once he was gone, the silence was one you could actually see. The beds were empty; his own bed, and the borrowed bed that had been his last.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;">A few days later, I helped carry that last bed, in separate pieces, out to the equipment truck. It was the first of many things that have left his little place where he spent the last three and a half years. For me it marked the moment strangely. This bed, a harbinger of death, moving on to be used again, a universal wave running through it, connecting us all to that someday-end; that, the last of our many beds.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;">It's strange having Dad gone. We moved here to be with him, and our days were structured and run by the clock that was set to his schedule. Every time I looked at the clock for weeks since he passed, it was with the haunting habit of checking for dad's next need. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;">His silence is so strong.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br></span></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-82227563141106811912020-11-06T10:02:00.001-08:002020-11-06T10:02:57.646-08:00 How to Become a Rockstar<img id="id_1c89_27f_5a33_1e6a" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/sNE4RYybqNb_QJOmwWZs0YcujpoW51zr0VubV02lTjiJNMq6Sl7mYBk4yPvGLK4" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br> <div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">I have a pile of partially written posts that never made it to the main page. This is one from before Covid. Maybe someone out there needs it now more than before. </span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br>*****<br></span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"></span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I replaced a GFI outlet the other day. I know that's not a big deal for most. It wouldn't really be for me either (except for a slight fear of death by electrocution), but I have had to really lower my expectations lately, and I'm (trying to be) okay with that. </span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br></span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"></span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Not long ago, I responded to a woman's post on the Hashimoto's Facebook page. She was so sad, was just barely diagnosed, and feeling guilty about not being enough for her children, not being well enough to take her daughter to the doctor when she got sick, etc. After I read my response back to myself, I decided I should keep my own copy to read on some future day when I need to hear the same words. Here they are...</span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br></span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">“Sweet, sweet, darling mama. You’re going to be OK. This is hard, no doubt about it. But you can do it. Don’t feel guilty for putting yourself first, and taking care of yourself. Try not to use the words like “failure”, or “terrible mom” when describing yourself, because<i> your heart is listening. </i></span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br></span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">If your sweetest, dearest friend was going through this right now, how would you talk to her? What words would you use? Would you give her permission to be sad? Would you tell her she just got this diagnosis, and it will take time to adjust? Would you tell her that she has to give the medicine time to work, the information time to sink in? Would you tell her that she is strong, and good, and capable, and that she will get through this?</span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br></span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I promise you will have better days. You will have bad ones too, but not all of them will be bad. One of the things that Hashimoto’s has given me that is really a gift, is to tell me to slow down, bring my babies up onto my lap and snuggle with them. On days when I feel bad, we read. If I don’t feel up to reading, we watch a nature show together and talk about it. We play little games, sometimes with me laying down and the game resting on my tummy. My daughter has officially labeled me, “the best pony mom in the world” because I play ponies with her. A world title... not so shabby for a sick lady.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br></span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Here are my new rules:</span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br></span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">If I’m tired I sit down.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br></span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">If I am sleepy, I cancel plans and take a nap.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br></span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I don’t schedule more than one "outside" activity a day if I can help it.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br></span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">As far as housework goes, if I get ONE thing done a day, I am a rockstar! And if I don’t, I have grace for myself for taking the day to rest.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br></span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Three months ago, I spent every waking minute on the couch or in bed. Unless I was absolutely forced to go get groceries or to take a child somewhere, I was on the couch laying down. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I now take two naps a week, instead of two a day. I’m getting my house tidied up little by little. I’m doing more things with my kids outside of the house. I’m starting to work on projects again. I am more cheerful and my anxiety is decreasing. My Hashimoto’s symptoms are less intense, and I’m feeling more hopeful. </span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br></span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">You’re going to be okay. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It’s going to be hard, </span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">but you’re good at doing hard things!"</span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br></span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">*****</span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br></span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I can't think of anyone to whom this simple note does not apply. We all need to take better care of ourselves. This world we live in, with it's schedules and expectations, is so hard on us. We are all suffering from being overbooked, undernourished, sleep-deprived, toxicified and spiritually drained. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> If we don't care for ourselves, who will?</span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br></span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So, I am proud of the day I put in the GFI. It took a long time, in an awkward spot in the hot garage. I have about twenty more outlets to change out, but hey, one down!</span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br></span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">That makes me a Rockstar, baby.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br></span></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"></div><div><br></div><div>July 2019</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-40281431839084680762020-10-18T23:31:00.001-07:002020-10-18T23:54:55.635-07:00 Cinderella <img id="id_317a_404d_e3aa_e908" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/KuF5nt46ivB8mEcir2c84pW4RJi-y5pMQ_wbb6aJ6eTNbgScINivw6c56yEMAGg" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; width: 392px; height: auto;"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><b><i>She may remember</i></b> this night for the rest of her life. Maybe not. But it stands out as different from all the other nights in the seven years before it. </span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">Natalie is a hummingbird on speed, a hopped up rabbit, a spastic housefly. She flutters and dances and chatters non-stop, all the live-long day. She runs everywhere she goes. You would think with the frenzied energy that drives her through fourteen waking hours, she would collapse in an exhausted little pink heap by 8:00 pm each night, but instead, though she is sent to bed by 8:30, you can hear her running about, playing and talking after 11:00 pm. She has been heard singing in her bed well past midnight (she’s like her mama; the night owl doesn’t fly far from the tree!). No amount of scolding or timeouts on the stairs have helped. They say that there are several things you can’t force a child to do; sleep is definitely one of them. </span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">And, as I’m sure you can imagine, unlike her bunny relatives, she doesn’t hop out of bed in the morning, because she is too bushed from her late night escapades.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">When the big kids used to do this, I made them plop down on a hard kitchen chair in the boring ol’ entryway</span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"> until they were plumb tuckered out. Recently, the big kids were laughing and joking about it. “Do you remember how Mom used to sit us on a wooden chair till we were tired when we wouldn’t go to sleep?” They talked about all of the ways they would flip and turn in the chair to try to get comfortable. They would soon begin <i>begging</i> to go to bed. “No,” I would say with hesitation, as though I were considering it, “I just don’t think you’re tired <i>enough</i>.” But eventually I learned that this technique wasn’t quite doing the job. They were still goofing off after-hours. </span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">Then, whilst wandering the dark corridors of my diabolical child-rearing chambers, I came upon an almost fool proof method for inducing sleep without Benadryl. And it worked. </span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">I haven’t had to dust off this particular parenting tactic in a few years, mostly because Jonah tends to just lay the heck down and go to sleep.</span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"> </span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">But for Natalie, it was time to pull out the big guns. </span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">“Natalie, come down here.”</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">She tentatively descended the stairs, and stood on one foot hugging the door jamb.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">“You have a lot of energy tonight. Let’s not waste it. Go get a washcloth and a spray bottle.”</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">She looked at me suspiciously.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">“Go on”, I coaxed. </span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">When she returned with the rag she held it out to me as though I were the one who would be using it. I gave her the simple instruction, “Okay, go scrub the spots off the kitchen floor.”</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">She was shocked, but didn’t protest. How could she? What would she say? “I can’t, Mom, and I have to go to sleep.” Her shoulders did droop a bit as she dragged her little feet back into the kitchen. </span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">She disappeared from sight for a while, but I could hear the spray bottle, so I knew she was working. Soon she migrated to the doorway to be sure I could see that she was crying, but she never quit working. I let her go on like that for another ten minutes, and then called her to me. </span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">“Do you think you’re tired enough to go to sleep now, or do you need a little more scrubbing time?”</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">“Noooooooooo,” she whimpered. </span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">“Oh, good,” I said, intentionally sounding very relieved that <i>she chose </i>to be done. “I’m glad you’re tired. You should sleep really well now.”</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">I hugged and kissed her, and told her I loved her. The lesson is built in, after all. No need for a lecture. </span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><img id="id_faba_3c5c_f30a_aedb" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/8pf8J6DlponYYLOrGQ5g_s4Co4EUkr93GG0vXcARB4EvVgWXwxO7zhS8h81Jlow" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br>*Post scrub script: Some kids are tougher than others. Natalie has gotten the opportunity to scrub the bathroom floor this week, as well. This time there were no tears. She hummed as she worked. I think she simply knew what to expect this time, and seemed somehow content with the situation. Maybe she was relieved to have something to do with her energy. Some children are a quandary. </div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">When she was done, she went straight to sleep. </div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">I imagine she’ll be doing the baseboards sometime later this week. I picture her, years from now, at a family reunion, telling her older siblings how hard she had it compared to them. </div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">“You guys got to sit on chairs. I had to scrub the floor!”</div> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-59641014408094664642020-10-12T21:15:00.001-07:002020-10-14T11:30:37.023-07:00 The One<div><img id="id_dd04_ef66_4e6_90c3" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/LucLX19icA-0b9E_33-wS02roPVSiE9q75B9ClQGmgvWx2eQ-7q-Hjlrr-adDAs" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br></div><div><br></div><div>So, Adam has Covid. We chose not to tell the Littles until he started feeling better because Natalie is very nervous about it all. Every time she prays, she asks God to protect “Adam and Ethan and the whole earth-planet-world” from covid. She’s covering all her bases. Adam is doing much better now, so we decided to tell them, partly because it is getting challenging to talk about it in code, and partly because they might find out by accident, and we didn’t want that. </div><div><br></div><div>Jonah simply said, “I thought he might have it, when you guys said he was sick.” He’s been paying attention. He was content to know Adam was on the mend, and casually headed out of the room. </div><div><br></div><div>Natalie stood still holding her little white bear and disappeared behind her blue eyes. After a few moments I asked her if she was okay with what we told her, and she said, “I’m not sure”. She was processing the months of prayers for the world, the masks and hand sanitizer and the closed stores; the fear. And the deaths. We hadn’t been able to protect her from knowing about those. “Will he die?”</div><div><br></div><div>After assuring her he was almost as healthy now as she is. I tried to explain, but then I stopped and said, “wait a minute”.</div><div><br></div><div>I ran to the studio and grabbed all of our pencil jars, and colored pencils and began counting them out in tens. When I got to 100, Natalie said, “is that all of the people who die?” I told her to wait for a moment and counted out my second hundred. Then I stepped back.</div><div><br></div><div>“If each one of these pencils is like one person who got sick with Covid,” then I reached out into the pile and choose a small pencil, “...this is how many would possibly die.” She took a minute, gave me a critique on the pencil color I had chosen, and then stepped back to let me know she understood. </div><div><br></div><div>It must have been enough for her. She seemed to relax. I again assured her that Adam was doing great, and she trotted away.</div><div><br></div><div>I looked at the pile of pencils. It’s an easy thing to explain it to a child that way, overly simplified. No point in upsetting her the way all of the grown-ups have been. She’s going to see enough of the hardships of life soon enough.</div><div><br></div><div>I looked at the single pencil in my hand. That pencil represents someone. Someone’s son or daughter, even if they died at 90. Hundreds and thousands, hundreds <i>of</i> thousands... of <i>someones</i>. I’m grateful today it wasn’t our <i>someone</i>. </div><div><br></div><div> I’m <i>almost</i> not worried anymore. There is still that tiny chance that I’ve heard about, the one of the young, healthy twenty-something who gets a mild case of Covid, and three weeks later dies suddenly of a stroke or heart failure. I stand with a pencil in my hand like someone drawing straws, and say another prayer for Adam. </div><div><br></div><div>“...and the whole earth-planet-world.”</div> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-80648444905733710272020-10-07T18:12:00.001-07:002020-10-08T00:51:24.405-07:00Road Maps from Above<img id="id_a9f7_60a8_b49a_3eb9" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/Znc0axT_ckdadm125A3S568IbbMXvYWtrjfDVyvXP1-QxMNwGw0lYrvvX6AGU08" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br> <div><i><font size="5">I had to borrow</font></i> this photo because, at the time these thoughts were coming to me, I was driving and couldn’t snap one. And of course, this happens to be a lush, green road in England, not our dry, golden landscape in Amador, but it’s not about the greenery. It’s all about the road.</div><div><br></div><div>As we were driving home from Sacramento today, my navigation had me take a different route than usual. Looking down at my phone, I saw a straight road stretching out for three or so miles ahead of my little blue arrow. But looking out my windshield, <i>Whoa</i>! I saw an undulating roller coaster ride, still three miles long, and linear as the crow flies - not turning from side to side - but certainly not “straight “.</div><div><br></div><div>It got me thinking how, from afar, a person’s road might look really straight. Even, well... “even”. No insanely obvious jerks to the left or right; no health scare, car accident, or lost job. But if you were <i>on</i> their road, riding shotgun, and could see the peaks and valleys - one after the other in succession, and maybe feel the sinking pressure in your chest and head as the car tilted skyward, the dizzying weightlessness at the top of each crest, the flip-flop of your stomach as you slid down the other side, and finally the sinking weight of your body pressing heavily into your seat at the bottom of the hill, the next hill looming before you - you might see it differently. Of course you would see it differently! You would <i>feel</i> it. </div><div><br></div><div>As a kid, we called these “Tickle-belly Hills”. We would chant for my dad to drive faster so we could feel them more intensely. Each of my own kids feels Tickle-belly Hills differently. My girls say it hurts their heads and makes them feel dizzy. Jonah says he feels it in his thighs, and Natalie says it makes her headachy. My big boys used to laugh because they could feel it… well, let’s just say they could feel it <i>down there, somewhere</i>. Some of them hate it, some love it. For me, it hits me in the chest and in the pit of my stomach. It’s part thrill, part dread. </div><div><br></div><div>Lately, I keep hearing people say how overwhelmed they are, saying they have “a lot going on“. And it seems more often than not, someone in the peanut gallery answers back “yah, we all do.”</div><div><br></div><div>Yah, we all do. </div><div><br></div><div>Probably. But that certainly isn’t helpful. Because while we all have a lot on our plates right now, everyone’s plate is different. Everyone feels that road in a different way. And it’s easy to look at someone else’s map from above and see it as a straight road, but that doesn’t mean it actually is. It doesn’t work to compare, and we should try not to, but we do sometimes. I do. We feel like no one knows how hard <i>our</i> road is right now. And hey, they probably don’t. Because you can’t compare caring for twins to being laid off, or being on quarantine to moving. And when someone says, “we all do”, they might be saying, “don’t forget me, I’m hurting too,” or even, “I can’t help you carry your load right now. Mine is already too heavy.”</div><div><br></div><div>Maybe we just need to answer the weary wave of that white flag that laments, “I have a lot going on”, with a call of “shotgun!”, and take their road with them for a while. </div><div><br></div><div>Yeah, (I think) we all do. </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-44332742274154095002020-09-27T23:46:00.004-07:002020-10-08T13:56:44.221-07:00Tidbits<img alt="" id="id_340e_b251_a22c_79da" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/yznGqeg-Yf3TvtoM0qGOuEUWx9ddBVOQunhOsdADZW6BFkuBITUS78HR4s6UUFk" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br /><br />I miss writing. I am not sure how on earth I can fit it in. Days blur by. We homeschool. We cook and clean. We tend Grandpa. We deal with the forest and it's surprises. I try "to Art" (as my secret brain calls it), but am usually too tired. So, blog-schmog.<div><br /></div><div>But there are a few things happening that should really be recorded.</div><div><br /></div><div>Jonah has begun reading. Really, really reading. Last year at this time he was agonizing through, "Pat can tap the map. Tap, Pat, tap!" One year later, and he is reading a 5th grade chapter book called <i> Because of Winn-Dixie</i> (which he prounounces WINN-dixie, like Windex). It is still a struggle. He still gets stuck on words with b's and d's (bdbdbdbdbdb...wouldn't you?), and we bumble along together slowly, but HE chose the book, and he chooses it again and again every day at reading time. And he choses every day to try, very, very hard. I am in awe of him. And because he loves being read <i>to</i>, he pays me for “extra chapters” in the books I read aloud to him, by reading <i>TO</i> <i>ME</i> for five extra minutes per mom-read chapter. Deliciously, the author we are currently reading is the master of chapter cliff hangers, always leaving him wanting.</div><div><br /></div><div><img alt="" id="id_a1d0_71ac_a77d_81d6" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/S62Mg7lXUTLYtYN0AHZEVxTMbs-VK_SYjI7MLRUk96QIqjrZTOqMvopUGDEoU-c" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br /><br /></div><div>Tessa has begun high school. It has been a brutal transition. Tessa was a "casual" student in middle school, not worried or terribly serious. Very chill. But she is our first child to hold any interest in College, with its high degree of scholarly expectation. Her online high school is full of teachers to hold her accountable that don't share her DNA. She is newly motivated to succeed, and has already been heard to say, "But I'm ALMOST down to a B!!!" It's uncharted territory for me as a parent.</div><div><br /></div><div><img alt="" id="id_4f5e_f851_955e_a84a" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/9e0WRQktjeLrDZWMRPMUIYL-IugmNoNimpuHVyu1YXJXOhZp0GvGi7FJlrv67F4" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Ellie is transitioning. Adulthood is around the very near corner, and she is making plans. She talks about moving out, and job plans. She got her covid-belated driver's license today. She suddenly cares about school. I hear the rustling from within her cocoon.</div><div><br /></div><div><img alt="" id="id_c171_69fe_4479_41a4" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/SWlxsOpauvaS2C3FSFatldkZS1w5FbJsFbnY2Mi1HBwq9zVGJiC6ZKWoP1ILZXc" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Adam is thriving in Utah. He is learning to balance life. Adam never learned to "hang out with friends" until the last two months of his senior year. While the sudden joy of that discovery was really a relief to me (isolated and introverted teenagers worry mamas), there was a learning curve that took it's toll on his savings. He has struck a lovely balance now between work and play, and is expanding his social circle, which was tiny for too long. He has found a real love-of-learning about all things Viking, which has expanded to history, archeology, ancient languages and even his own genealogy. It's a glorious thing to watch, and I have been learning along side him so that I can understand all that he is absorbing. This week I found myself touring an online Norwegian Viking museum, and attempting tablet weaving. I failed, but I will keep trying. I have a goal to make Adam a gift for Christmas; a woven Viking belt, a replica of the one found on the Oseberg Burial Ship. Yep, I'm geeking out.</div><div><br /></div><div><img alt="" id="id_b9df_1b92_7dbf_2c4d" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/1YPfsELFMqZBCUGNwlLMImedip8ZARYRAk3XhBCTY5P0U8MtqY-etmW0tQ2Tevg" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br /><br /></div><div>Ethan's not very vocal about his world, but work seems good, and he is coping well with lame car disappointments. Between work and his own personal study, he has piled more skills onto his already broad knowledge of all things mechanical and electrical. I'm so proud of him.</div><div><br /></div><div><img alt="" id="id_e72_fcd_ae2_99a4" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/k2gQi3wloqaR8RuhuQRlt0mbEMKzC6mwM-LCdUh6Fb8k4Ha5hfK7GWHZYUx0Uj0" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>The sea-sickness Guy was suffering from the wildly rolling waves of his new principal job seems to be subsiding. He is learning which wheels are truly in need of aid, and which will continue to squeak unappreciative to any amount of oil given. We are finding a rhythm, which includes some later nights, and my learning an all-new jargon. There should be an "Orientation for Spouses of New Admins", including a dictionary, program flow charts, and a little training on grief counseling. The first two months were very hard. Hard, plus covid. Everybody is mad at school administrators, as though they knew this was coming and hadn't bothered to plan for it. "Fair" has lost all meaning in a world where there <i>simply are not answers</i>, where need and demand outnumber available manhours threefold, and where people are screaming to get their never-again "normal" back, and they are screaming it at YOU. Try stepping into that chaos on your first day. Hard. Really hard.</div><div><br /></div><div><img alt="" id="id_36b1_acc7_13e0_ea20" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ehztS-fkV9R--HCxxbaiUUXN3zcKbC0NZ8lfxdY3DHtdemXENwxg8zVa-ep9CCE" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>One more thing... I found a new doctor. It's just the very beginning of what will likely become a long and difficult process. But I am hopeful that by this time next year, I will show as much improvement in my health as Jonah has in his reading. </div><div><br /></div><div>Oh! And Natalie lost her first two teeth, and one more is starting the dangle-dance. There is a comfortable, if not slightly sad, predictability in that little detail. I don't know what the future holds, but I do know that tooth isn't going to be there come Thanksgiving. </div><div><br /></div><div><img alt="" id="id_2a69_5025_c13e_a9b7" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/Wdrc8jzkMRBqfR7-PjPUmo5ikO1fzRT30pXiN-xHYFaG5LozQqBsbS1Ls3Db5_o" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br /><br /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-38781279325262560872020-07-13T15:13:00.000-07:002020-08-04T22:50:09.417-07:00Weekend Away - Act III<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-7bb678e4-7fff-0c83-e2d3-f58689dc0076" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-7bb678e4-7fff-0c83-e2d3-f58689dc0076" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img id="id_131e_808a_dab3_5ef6" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/OutV_Bma07_H8BCbEZUJdBj2CvxCtKeFXCEKW0ywKAK_g9tCbFB47tLHLpTsx3M" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br style="white-space: normal;"></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It wouldn’t seem our day could have gotten any better, but the sun hadn’t set yet, and we were going to drink in the last few hours that were left to us, right down to the bottom of the hourglass. We had seen a website for a pottery (the studio, not the vessel), and decided we would try to find it. Well, of course you know that for me, that was already something special, but an hour later, it had become almost otherworldly.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br style="white-space: normal;"></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Quyle Kilns Pottery sat on a shady hilltop surrounded by gardens, lush maples and tall pines. After talking shop with owner Pamela for a while, I guess we proved we were part of the clay clan inner circle, because soon we were whisked away on a tour of the entire enterprise, built of brick and native stone over 80 years ago by her grandfather as barns and stables, then passed on to her parents who turned it into a pottery. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><img id="id_ea3a_689d_99f2_f00e" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/c2YEXLu7dK5tKqNVA0TAd85zcWp8pXJ_gpmxIwjQx2YvxgHz7WODs8uHXg0Y2zY" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 392px; height: auto;"></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-7bb678e4-7fff-0c83-e2d3-f58689dc0076" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-7bb678e4-7fff-0c83-e2d3-f58689dc0076" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-7bb678e4-7fff-0c83-e2d3-f58689dc0076" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"> For decades the family has mined granite runoff in the Sierras, mixing it in giant vats, pushing it through an ancient and enormous filtering press, then on to the pug mill and extruder, to be bagged into ready-to-use clay. Just that morning, as every morning, the 80 year old fellow that has worked there since Pamela was a girl, hand shoveled 4,000 pounds of clay dust into the vat to begin his work day. Pallets of bagged clay, the fruits of his efforts in vivo, rested before their journey to faraway stores where simpletons like me will casually buy them, never knowing of the skill, labor and pure history used to create them.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><img id="id_9a58_8442_86ee_c7e1" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/L8IYY4Gb1hdON0BADNfD9fHDmvJ6dRV7s8L-nlFOb5aVty2-uHYOhSnMuY_0tq0" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 392px; height: auto;"></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">Talking so fast we could barely keep up, Pamela took us through her glaze mixing room, built into what has one been horse stalls, it’s cool stone walls splashed with faded, unfired glazes. She flipping casually through her handwritten glaze recipe book in front of shelves laden with huge colorant-filled antique butter crocks marked by labels like “cobalt oxide” and “copper carbonate”. This felt like the vault of family secrets. </span></p><div><br></div><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><img id="id_1af4_ef24_e485_7ab1" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/en7k5gBeayzRGJ2BSaa-XgHVBTU2T8sfpnQk2cpmdgTyubJ4q1p9EoHfaFzbGgg" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><img id="id_cb7f_32d1_5f03_a48a" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_ufEsh3FrC5cLKcyK-x9qCReVktCHIs1_cuOsvs72uyCfzrFRJJU6w0UVJqGeCY" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666984558105px; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">Next, she wandered us through the throwing studio, the hand building areas and past walk-in kilns and dozens of racks of pottery in various stages of new existence. We were then led on to the casting room, it’s shelves balanced high with plaster molds. A light layer of white clay dust rested on most everything, the sign of a well used but mostly tidy studio. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size: 14.666666984558105px; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></font><img id="id_e495_4c81_d30f_a3ff" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/QZfL6QJF0qcgNf-q2PL39Jks6IFoiJiq2qsyXcAaR1z3gqTrOOeu39x3qVhgbCo" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><img id="id_5bcb_83e1_f82e_6e50" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/MLctJC31hEBvQoAUXZnyq4UgudrYqYkjckwAmNDVzD9nOw-RFKQLiKEQPmZV858" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666984558105px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666984558105px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eventually, we stepped out into the courtyard and then snaked back through a side door to what I could now see was the heart of the pottery. It’s walls hung with old posters of past shows, uplifting quotes, cartoon strips and artist cards from ceramics festivals gone by. I told Guy that every pottery I have ever been in has had a wall like that. Now Pamela and I were like old friends, exchanging banter freely, as though I was standing in this room for the hundredth time.</span><br><br><img id="id_a70f_545f_775a_50f8" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/xZqPyo-UMPfeWMlzNXEaMprHxpLzv2bue_9AlYBEesptkQK5QcSyalvIzu42USY" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666984558105px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666984558105px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Back in the gallery, Guy and I easily agreed on a Naked Raku style pot to bring home, and I asked for a bag of that precious clay. As we said goodbye, I felt deep appreciation and simultaneous shame. I bought my first bag of clay when I was 14, and have bought scads of them since, never once considering the people and the work that went into making them for me; the eighty year old man shoveling clay dust at 6 am. I’d just grab a bag off the shelf, throw it into the van, open it, use it, and claim the results as my own, as though it was all my effort alone. These folks are the orchestra behind the opera, the toiling farmer for the acclaimed chef (not that I am or ever hope to be the caliber of opera or chef, of course, but now you understand). I was humbled. </span><br><br><img id="id_c346_c432_9fb5_9431" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/iCp8Nwwb0I_q3kVkGGMsxoAn2NNXK5HUzjsJlvsh3YqMQjWqVC69Ji001wGTEk4" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I am ashamed that I have been taking my clay for granted all these years, never thinking about the people behind it,” I said, suddenly misty eyed. “I’ll never do it again. It will be an honor to use this clay, and I hope I’ll do it justice.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br><img id="id_9b0e_92b9_48c0_4149" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/I4UiHS1uW82HqHqpNINd72Xb9m8Ix_u24AXeIr4xaljhOwyMnWDIl8TqjYHITso" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76); color: rgb(76, 76, 76); font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 23px;"><i>"We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. We see more, and things that are more distant, than they did, not because our sight is superior or because we are taller than they, but because they raise us up, and by their great stature add to ours."</i></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76); color: rgb(76, 76, 76); font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 23px;"><i><br></i></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(76, 76, 76); color: rgb(76, 76, 76); font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 22px;"><i>12th century theologian and author John of Salisbury</i></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-15178164078597722232020-07-13T01:18:00.002-07:002020-07-13T21:52:46.587-07:00A Weekend Away - Act II<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="" id="id_812d_9605_726f_510c" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/nwlg7969TJMQhya-W-jZ-des8caHwh_9xr9D59YmKBef0ZRc4duvLH54dwrzGhg" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip=""><br></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font face="courier" size="5">During Day Two</font></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of our splendid “Pretend-we-are-empty-nesters-even-though-we-have-a-seven-year-old” weekend away, we tootled around (which my spellcheck does not recognize as: "verb; the act of cheerful and mindless wandering, sampling of ice cream from 150 year old mercantiles, and reading of <i>ALL</i> novelty mugs, with complete disregard to schedules, time constraints or dinner times". Whatever, Spellcheck). We had the novel experience of finding a dish in an antique shop that was 1. Not "one my grandma had", 2. Not "one my mom had', but, 3. "One we got for our wedding"... and <i>still use</i>. Big ol' bite of reality sandwich with that one. </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our <u style="font-style: italic;">dishes</u></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> are getting old. </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We talked and teased and held hands, bought ridiculously over-priced toffee, and remembered why we thought it might be swell to spend our lives together. Kids have a way of beating all of that out of ya', what with their constant need of love and guidance, clothing and shelter, and something to eat besides Fruit Loops. I don't care how often I delude myself into thinking that we haven't been wedged apart a little by life, all it takes is one night away for me to see that we have. It's good to floss your marriage once in a while. We did what any married couple of 25 years would do when they are at last alone at an Inn... nap. Before dinner. There is the possibility that other shenanigans were had, but I can neither confirm, nor deny the rumors. The rumors that I just started. Shhhh.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><div><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br></b></div></b><img alt="" id="id_5839_f2ab_ad71_7db4" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/whWuaNGiDHZEwbvvZ_javdr0MOcIzS4jMd7u545LI75oBixpkbvP91VXU9iKNjY" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip=""><div><br><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">On our last morning, Guy and I planned for breakfast in a quirky cafe off of the touristy main street in old town, that was covid-style-packed with locals, cow print, and a funny old hostess who called herself Cha Cha (who talked to me in Spanish using curse words I didn't understand... 'cuz missionaries don't tend to learn curse words). While we waited for a table, we chatted with a couple across the foyer, whose company we enjoyed so well that when our table was ready, and because the wait was so long, we invited to join us (it’s okay. It’s been 14 days and we didn’t die). We talked all through ordering, waiting and eating, shared </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">stories of hard times, </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">pictures of our kids at arm's length, and the best food I never should have eaten (you know, Hashimoto's. Bleh. It gave me hives). We parted with warm and simple goodbyes. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I often wonder how many lovely friends I am missing out on because life is short and I don't live in Scarsdale or Toledo or Tanzania, and also, may or may not speak Swahili. But mostly not.</span></div><div><div><div><br></div><img alt="" id="id_590b_1a8e_ec4_ae9a" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/pjrzplg352isRllYiAV4aSXamrE6-Yll8EVV8bEKPAaQqbsmpHqFw4bptuqh5GY" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip=""><br><span id="docs-internal-guid-ffc865a4-7fff-c99e-6503-30911bc71041"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the last few hours before we headed home, we wandered the old roads looking for "something special", and found it at the edge of a well loved neighborhood, marked by a simple hand painted sign that read <i>Bonsai Nursery</i>. The "Wife of the Gardener" as she called herself, Anne, was such a gentle soul. We strolled her back yard-turned-gallery (for truly, bonsai is an art), and admired the 70 or so magical little (and some, surprisingly, big) trees, each as carefully tended and shaped as the one beside it. She spoke with such kindness, and we visited about faith and integrity and parenting and hard work. She openly shared tree-wisdom, something I have found that confident artists do freely, revealing the secret for growing moss, bonsai and succulents happily all in the same pot without a grain of soil. To my comment on their dedication to their craft, she replied that most of their trees were young-ish, "only ten years old or so", and pointed out the 75 year old tree that stood regally among it's mates. Her husband was it's steward, not it's owner, she explained. It had come to him, and if he did his job well, someday it would move on to another. Hmmm. Has a nice ring to it.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We brought home two gorgeous potted plants for just $5 each (I am not ready for bonsai trees in my life again yet, as they are sweetly needy), and left her waving gracious thank yous at the gate. It had indeed been "something special". </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="arial"><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="arial"><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">I always leave the presence of Life Masters feeling a bit changed. A little lost for a moment, at having to walk away from all of that wisdom and life experience, a pilgrim </span><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">on the return descent from</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the holy mountain, cup not quite full enough. But then I feel </span></font><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">invigorated</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> knowing that amidst the uncertainty and chaos of this life, there are wise ones and sages hidden on quiet lanes, disguised as the Wives of Gardeners.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/751ac505-de80-41cc-923c-46dd4fc69a00" id="id_a2b0_d2a3_5e46_ca41" style="width: 0px; height: auto;"></span></p></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Continued in Act III</span></div>
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</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-77772761042640633512020-07-05T23:26:00.001-07:002020-07-11T13:37:46.129-07:00A Weekend Away, in Three Acts. <div><img id="id_c398_d673_f55d_804c" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/yH3GGzlq7HPQ-3R7qn4FaYNDYHJvL7basesT2xUEFiLWZ85wUWRfKIFzYaBwZMw" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br></div><div><br></div>Technology. Beautiful, terrible technology. It's the thing that allows us to have 6,000 photos on our phones (for better AND for worse).<br>
<br>
The internet, like a great cosmic dryer sucking up single socks, never to be seen again, has just dumped a post that really mattered to me. One that was history- and tear-filled. I wept right out in public while writing it, but told myself it didn't matter; it had to be written, tears or not.<br>
<br>
*publish*<br>
<br>
.... nothing.<br>
<br>
*blank page*<br>
<br>
I will try again. But not now. Now I will tell you about now, and try again soon to write that dear, tender post.<br>
<br>
*******<br>
<img id="id_3bd0_e97a_f755_a0b0" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/GzTcdpqnkqU3Ak04LRUJKkk-kI-620T9gSNxSck9ZHT7IubY0SZ8UiFv-rQZvpA" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br>
Act I<br><br>
We have reached a magical age, my sweetie and me; the age when our kids only kinda-sorta need us, and we can sneak away for a night or two and return to mostly intact children (although Jonah's self-mashed toe was bandaged and Tessa now knows that cooking oil is flammable). Guy's new job as a principal for Sacramento County Office of Education started last week, so before he embarked on this very intense adventure, we stole away for a weekend ALONE.<br>
<br>
Not far. Ellie doesn't have her licence yet (thanks Covid, they’re not even making appointments at the DMV), so we stayed within an hour's drive of home. In these hills of "Gold Country" are tucked many tiny towns all staking a claim, pun much intended, on the Gold Rush. "Birth Place" of this and "Gateway" to that, and all. The towns are mostly cute and somewhat run down, with boutiques and bistros tucked in amongst old hotels and DOZENS of antique stores. We strolled past manor homes with historical landmark signs out side, and hair salons and notary offices inside, humoring over the modern attempts at mending 200 year old brick walls and wooden window frames with Gorilla Glue and duct tape.<br>
<br>
I don't know that there was anything particularly unique about this venture, except for us. We are different these days. We recognize and appreciate this little lull in our typical chaos, but we are battening down the hatches. I don't know that anything specific is coming, but something always does. In February, just before the universe spiraled out of control for everyone else, we were hustling back and forth to a hospital in Sacramento for my dad, who had a heart attack, a bleeding ulcer, plummeting blood sugars, bladder issues and pneumonia, all at once. He's doing better these days, but there will be hard times to come. That's just how mortality works.<br>
<br>
And Guy's new job is a bit of a wild card. Who knows what the school year will look like with Covid in the mix. His hours will be longer, days off fewer, and stresses much, <i>much </i>greater. Add to that Chex-Mix of life our six kids and you have predictable <i>un</i>predictability. The summer days are warm, but like an old mariner, I feel storms coming. <div><br>
My mom would say, "Don't borrow trouble". That was her way of cautioning that we not worry before we know what we have to worry about. And truly, I'm not worried. I've just been in enough antique stores to know that I'll see Carnival Glass, dusty smelling furniture and old lace doilies in the next one, same as the last. <br><br><div><img id="id_dac6_ac1e_d5a7_399f" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/MQIX70P4HZ2tS8FbFm1P6mU-gNdYn1Hfs5F3MkYLH-14s9v4C3ITGO2gmT2GUr4" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br></div></div><div><br></div><div>Continued in Act II</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-85904563271549287672020-06-08T18:28:00.001-07:002020-07-13T22:11:11.140-07:00First Homecoming -A Photo Album<img id="id_b6fb_e091_a445_c4c5" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/aawYJ4G6LlmW9P4374oyVArx6bMd0bKSSlmhlIUqovCMnlBlad1vK_FB0ai0B_g" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><br><div>Back in January, Adam set off for his grand adventure of life on his own. There’s a whole post about it waiting in the wings, I just haven’t gotten it finished yet. But now it’s been six months, and we finally got to see our boy again.</div><div><br></div><div>We surprised Natalie and Jonah, who did not know he was coming. I told them we had to go pick something up in Sacramento and if they were <i>very</i> good, we would bring them a surprise. They were very good! (which is kind of a good thing, because I wasn’t going to take Adam back if they had been naughty!).</div><div><br></div><div>Adam stayed for 10 days, and Natalie stayed right beside him for about five. </div><div><br></div><div><img id="id_8ad0_4334_c19d_425f" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/eQiv9Ren8UaFMObB6FG6fl47WW7qT_nUn_RLqFE2zerBQ8Bi4oR9Ekoj7DgFRsI" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><img id="id_579d_d086_86aa_2a56" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/EgtGs-10BNmVxJNs6L_P4PYAixq7LfC2e804w_ju_pDr41ErqjGOS6fN6F0JfyY" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><div><br></div><div><img id="id_3aa_dfde_f605_40b7" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/GGSR_EXmrcqvdDdwUAiIyasJha4iy9kXjDJtfxq1ToZC0ZMdeXxLSxnByaEZzy0" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br></div><div><br></div><img id="id_27b3_700b_9acf_657f" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/zS9y3Uu4grk4lJ3m3fBYl3PUUX5mKvaGcjD1CGYd4pGzW-xCf0tYnXfGPckP1lg" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><img id="id_3325_3340_c860_e5bb" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/q0LiQWd13K3wglKQkxaPqlLD9Q_i24vMcoQdbFiW-n6j6rALPmI8JaHgJYA3Hlg" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br></div><div>Reading Ralph S. Mouse, in person! Their phone storytime is great, but real life snuggles are better. </div><div><br><img id="id_aea2_6cdf_6602_2b59" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/aNCqEjgqbbgsR2Kxr5RItZN_fPjbQ2Q96Szptk1lXXjKSyKVmNlIjnvtQh60gBQ" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><img id="id_56b0_db67_7acc_7f29" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/CwtN1nfZwJtyk3D28zz3NupqnrhEYCFmqd6jdpyTwRHLCe4doedQvKWEzRTIY2c" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"></div><div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">Adam tolerated Natalie’s near constant touch and attention, and I noticed that every time Natalie asked, “Adam, do you want to...”, His answer was a solid, “Sure”.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span><img id="id_6c2f_d68a_b63c_410f" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/R1Q9W47RqSACtkZ5mQqjRidcKUFYvlLxnsmjvjfaa0TvhkQvyZUGC-kXHUMkNFM" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"></div><div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span><img id="id_ea3c_ab8c_8ffe_7c5f" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/OQ7pbvHzKy6hoZhiQKYbnv9gzDmwCw7tcvo5WCnGzDKWANSszyD7JwgPXv-BXq0" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"> <br><br></div><div>Rock chiseling lessons from brother BFF</div><div><br><img id="id_3123_699_8ec2_d3b8" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/JDgguZ98DPo2CEI25lkdwLSpFAxNCJHECj5nfrL8zZA14WfbKQiwNvSSp2ctz6Y" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><img id="id_bd8f_4c94_26e3_aa10" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/c6FEgZnxR4xATMF4O_GkhJ_bo3iqoj9vnw9LafNydF96lPOMvTkIwjPopey67lY" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br></div><div>Adam came specifically for Nano’s birthday. Ellie has pretty much taken over all cake duties around here, but she had me help this time. </div><div><br><img id="id_ca8a_8466_a1e3_441d" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/gsABuHuy7H0bwijJWKe4ouBbEW4KrPhrmMzKz3Z6JP98s0zEziN7CUDA67ylsF0" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><img id="id_3a08_9a64_c3a5_bcfb" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/ow4DBpRhq7PSGMa7BHqzvqz0D5rYVV8bQw8I67uNwBNqi6bHPvub7rcQJ5DOGM8" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br></div><div>Strawberry chocolate checkerboard cake with rainbow frosting by Ellie, stuffed unicorn by Mom.</div><div><br><img id="id_fe70_a774_e992_6517" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Fm1crMhB0TYWi-BrFQ57cNcEwwJ9vrIRi7cFhQ8dWcF_VlBEJDOG1FmjeS0SOgA" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><img id="id_ae23_5ad_531b_3bcc" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/xhgxfBEc-18YLCBdXYu7J1YlH41b8bQJa6znlpkJKUooE9p3_JJ0Bn1ImwQEZoY" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br></div><div>Natalie didn’t know what to expect…</div><div><br><img id="id_899b_3480_fb1c_2c43" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/ok7FTBSQt_5ocKeIaN-XpgzpieeNN0zP4_Jp0rTOF9xfq-vZ05cFFYa2mI9rft8" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br></div><div>... but she loved it!</div><div><br><img id="id_fff0_b41b_be90_225a" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/aHfAjvHCGKqxcj-Z3EHZoa6ti5KG1RLPZOMKZRPF4KwOUZ2mDXsJkyI_wJQVMqo" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><img id="id_30c3_3073_dc1_7e76" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/3Qein3iOtQZb27K8wR-1MgQxx6_JYPRMSi3R4griUweMapfnPmQiMYmc9IS94vg" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><img id="id_be44_5b7b_37a_8d5e" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/5aeaLhFFw8_vfn5ESILsBjIlZ7HhE4dfX6uYONAc33kBz-A9qxBKKYZluKuzUOA" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br></div><div>It feels so good to see all of my little chickens in the same room!</div><div><br><img id="id_fe43_560a_429f_84c2" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/2O6exLbuieIVK_jBVjy4C9EsaMJuNV3GoDodK1u0sJBJ4pfsIU2JxZxpbatjSss" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br></div><div>A unicorn <i>AND</i> a Pegasus...Ethan knows what Sister loves!</div><div><br><img id="id_d815_b9d5_fbc8_b6f3" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/7I5Fp7UOtTqK-sLuDeNwEzX5uLf-j0cc5IeWHmxXJu5grkuTOGc-OkhKPbbWydc" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br></div><div>An outdoor adventure kit from Ellie and Tessa. Those binoculars actually work really well! The first specimen she gathered was a bird’s wing. It smelled <i>great</i>. I know, because she shoved it right under my nose to show me. Yum. </div><div><br><img id="id_1b77_4e90_1420_9b38" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/KR01cwor7jz2-MNh1ET6334NTdQtEuoHHhHi6ijowhY5nrpCzSk75fXGYY3JaXA" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br></div><div>I made Natalie a set of fairies and gnomes from doll blanks, and a little fairy house to play with in a little moss garden I made for her outside. She loved it!</div><div><br></div><div><img id="id_2a62_4e94_e257_1548" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/TD3zbpoSMUaJQOOh52N23cPlScs2Y_DkM3wWPa5qIU5QvFmkqa5Gb32l3rQjeHI" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br></div><div>I even added freckles. Natalie loves her freckles. </div><div><br><br><img id="id_fbb8_d25e_b14_6e60" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/wBhty0hzEblPLk0bYUQ2MdWgWwRTO0MT43BHjXo_JNM8CbMmU20C7wO_B8zQE4Q" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"></div><div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span>The bigger kids got the idea to recreate one of my favorite of my kid’s childhood photos. The day the original was taken, Tessa REFUSED to cooperate. The only way we got her to finally look at the camera was to have her hold a long forgotten prop bunny we found on a high shelf. </div><div><br></div><div>So, of course, we needed a bunny for the new photo, too. </div><div><br></div><div><img id="id_6e97_7a2f_6651_e810" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/6fJlHYDeYMWJlSbdCwlAZSaPamLQlpb1SBTHOI5HT4t9MNJHM3AK23YTPC1dUrY" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br></div><div></div><div><br><img id="id_77cc_d81b_e9d1_13f8" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Dc7sC10Fgf1tFR_8FRIw4UUIFFGG7RoHMkufiu740SJgsAfkLHtdzjdhOZGlW_g" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><img id="id_49ad_627f_69fa_6b2f" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/f4hHERRltC_r3GECS7FsckSuLsI7gXrI3faYIUCvKFOu8mdZuvn7Nj1CdGypE1A" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"></div><div><br></div><div>Jonah sweetly played all day long the next day with Nano and her new toys, including fairies, sand toys, and safari gear. </div><div><br><img id="id_df3a_93d4_ea38_171f" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/z_7nzWGjHR5qUdOkxuejzWW7fFRb6TU63B-rQnyM9-Pt-oeB5pjMuLMq1hpdYLE" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><img id="id_adea_9b8c_114b_6dc0" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/OrwoFq_mk87fRlAf83T8_Ht8P-y9Cpcvlgy5-TDS1V9H1OY5qQRoVT2obA0nZ8Y" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br></div><div>These two. I swear. I can’t believe how close they still are. I hope that never changes. </div><div><br></div><div><img id="id_b83c_26e9_40bf_ac5" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/7ieUqj16GeHorJT26HU-Wl-4SJqEXlsSL7S-aZWOJlTR2QohfNmIkMmzrsfF_qk" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br></div><div>Natalie also got sandbox toys for her birthday. The gravel driveway is probably not the best place for her to play with them, so we are building a sandbox in the back.</div><div><br></div><div><img id="id_2537_6c55_b793_f303" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/50Rvb_NeuOOumMyXkhpgThMpwvlTX55JsdHl9Zvo7pCKhzIYEv3bXLzgZJZjhFA" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br></div><div>(In other news- Ellie taking driver’s training, complete with face mask, gloves and a temperature scan. Life goes on, even with #2 son at home). </div><div><br></div><div><img id="id_385a_66bc_a83_a196" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Ak2Hw4YmoWdj5Jcx5cK3NwM3j8Ls7moEq8j3hV_B25BsJA2s0znv_lL72fRcwBE" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br> </div><div>On our last day with Adam we tootled off to a favorite swimming hole along Sutter Creek. Jonah and Nano caught minnows and Adam taught Tessa to skip stones, while I napped on a huge rock in the shade. <br><br><img id="id_5448_38cd_a28f_31f1" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/8dKzoj6_vHGylBl43YzVsysjkiqjTizXqNRORFXEfZVsnt5H8GnIBNq5KmbU76g" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><img id="id_44_b2a5_6200_94d" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/elRT-pvQ9EfOl-uIcsUopO2t7l7v0m8FnG3JCiJwZKcd1P8ij29lp4B_MCWgE2s" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br></div><div>Adam left beautiful stacked rock totems all around the creek. I hope whoever came upon them later appreciated them. </div><div><br><img id="id_c4c9_d3e_7cec_c38f" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/tvUDqlnMGRP-BI0pWPv6_HKWreziOtnZFd8AaUYXFFIh-CV_WL62aU3TO-T7ugQ" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><img id="id_6c5c_c566_7653_d16d" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/G4d13Dmk0Eng0oAoXZ0ceD7WUAODzCUZx7kTfBgQmKMzxdi7iTOXExn89drLoko" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><img id="id_ac07_c3cc_c20_52d0" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/03U0mRHmCQhkM1OcCdGxRb9e9IOGkl9chPj2YWyO2advALeyRRrKwQm7MyghAVM" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><img id="id_a4f7_1b99_5eeb_509" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/yeaic6yBqStVkFrqpw-9EikpQtRE1xuSGai9Gzw8UrC5gpjpcnzzBIcX6pBuh6s" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><img id="id_c921_f2e3_6e6b_ca0e" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/6CTFSambROvGMENCVbkAwsFsmXaIsno7GeTZQoxldq0ZfaTHvwBTI99xBSXTPaw" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br></div><div>Alas, the time came for Adam to go to the place he now calls home. </div><div><br><img id="id_910_812_3c95_eccd" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/lsqP9Oy4lcadffianxJUjUdwo8ffMB96jYNosuNYOdvtvG7ESInwlygcQPt7A3M" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"></div><div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><br></span><img id="id_a4ee_324_83d3_260a" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/X4NvgTMyaduu-3ukhXWMwrsCFZy36iacKCO3GRouqqh4MfxcZoKSMSgyQrDkUOM" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br>Then came the goodbyes...</div><div><br><img id="id_847_cf59_eaf9_6a0a" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/DUhz1Z9Yj34ieAEUbBXbrMvbSAElkQ8XhRO7L6UEGSjtJdeV6kkXCrQ1kWP2hVE" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><img id="id_c816_d8e_ecfa_52c6" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/C_VT9yflztpM_oPElVwsPWjRtQckxCQXZvq3obWhqpzpewCbGk6pW7ugb3Tz774" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><img id="id_87c8_3878_639e_3dae" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/7WbElZPluSB320BBjv_WnFwTqMneiIeY9xG7WJvQqUvlYXt1crrioz-oSssf6fI" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><img id="id_b41b_1ff4_b79f_2bbc" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/D_XcVMDjUTY5OD3mPW0Wt7XZb-aJKppagHCVItCLpID2D4sepfIoxYgeTZODUnQ" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br></div><div>And mama, last of all. </div><div><br><img id="id_ce4e_d72d_b8_cfc6" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/PWFtQo_lo_NHg8H_LYqkl_GKwnZIUHmiCd-5Fur9cP_PoAaMolnNENIaimc9MOo" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br>And then he was off into the blue beyond. </div><div><br><img id="id_4088_1270_c048_30d6" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/GyG98rsl7WB9CaITvZ_cqm2zcBlbU0C8MYTrZeiZ-mlzdDXUKMhYQlkZYq29C-E" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br>I don’t know long it will be till I see my boy again. We are back to weekly phone calls, but I’ll get used to it again. </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-78419430766977633912020-05-31T17:57:00.000-07:002020-05-31T22:53:13.719-07:00Befores and Afters<div>
<img alt="" id="id_55ae_a72d_f332_e85c" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/iFHFlX5hIyWRXLs7axgZh7YcsnH7JMgdKl5xN4TimCA7ZsMt0zz-uKWON8RUXcw" style="height: auto; width: 392px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br />
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A friend recently told me that from afar my life looked idyllic. I had to think about that. Idyllic; Adj.: Extremely happy, peaceful or picturesque. </div>
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Hmmm. I guess it could look that way. I’ve always tried to be honest in my social media posts. I never use a filter or photoshop on people, especially not myself, and only filter other photos to bring the color up to the vibrancy of real life. But one thing I recognize is that I am a master cropper. A castoff shoe, a cluttered countertop, a basket of laundry, all end up on the virtual cutting room floor. </div>
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I crop stories, too, to protect my family’s privacy. I way over-share my own stuff, as you well know, but <i>their</i> stories are not mine, even though the pain they can cause often is. It’s not at all that we don’t have trials. We have scrapes and snags like everyone; marital fussing, belligerent offspring, embarrassingly deferred maintenance, and shocking sinks towering with three days of cereal bowls and soup pots. </div>
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I guess I don’t need to justify anything. We are a pretty typical family in most ways. I will admit that the Littles have an unusually close relationship. I thank God everyday for sending Nano for Jonah. But we argue and fuss and get our feelings hurt and feel lost and alone and overwhelmed, just like everyone else. </div>
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By cropping out some stories I guess my life can sometimes look like a glazed donut, but trust me when I say there have been heartbreaks and tragedies. Doughnuts have holes. I’m not trying to depict our lives as one big “After” picture. Sometimes I just forget you haven’t seen the “Before”. </div>
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Before: our garden area, long neglected. Last year at this time I was still nearly bedridden after three months of severe shingles and the the sledgehammer of Hashimoto’s. Neglected weeds send down deep roots. </div>
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This is AFTER two days of weeding! </div>
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5 days in:<br />
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The never ending burn pile...</div>
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My goal had been to get all the prep work done during the week so we could plant that Saturday. We lost a day to rain, and the near equivalent to lollygagging, whining and faux weeding (which is when children look like they are weeding, but upon close inspection are counting the stripes on rolly polly bugs). </div>
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That Friday, Guy and I had a date night, toodling around Lowe’s gathering cinder blocks and fence poles, but our plans for lush garden plantings were thwarted by endless racks of tomatoes and not much else. We got some takeout and watched the tail end of the sunset from the Petco parking lot. Dating in the era of covid. </div>
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In vegetable desperation, on Saturday we hopped over to the little garden center here in town. I seldom stop there, guilty of opting for low price over local. It was so amazingly beautiful! One might say... idyllic.<br />
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The nursery’s weathered, hand-built shelves were loaded with heirloom-this and hybrid-that, and held aloft over dozens of volunteers; Blue Columbine popping up at the bench corners, Hostas and stripped creepers blanketing the shady ground under benches, and sprays of Alyssum tumbling like giggling babies from old clay pots stacked in rusty wheelbarrows.<br />
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It looks like gardening perfection there. Of course, one doesn’t see the late nights spent over hundreds of weeks since this place came into being, or the bin out back of brown stems and dry, crunchy leaves on plants that didn’t make it long enough to find their forever home. </div>
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(What the heck are my kids doing in the background? I didn’t see that happening when I took the picture!)</div>
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We bought veggies, mostly just the food we will eat, and a few that will become bug food for sure (I know, I know, cayenne and soap. I remind myself to get around to it every time I see a chewed up leaf). And each child chose a pack of flowers, for our spirits. </div>
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Then it was back to work...<br />
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When kids start fighting I should tell them to go get in a garden box. </div>
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A transplanted lavender that is not happy. </div>
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A volunteer! Miner’s lettuce. To some, a weed, but not to me. It’s cute, the deer don’t like it, so I’m leaving it!</div>
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My sweetie, my smiling garden gnome. I’m really grateful to him. Outdoor work is not his favorite. Bugs. Specifically, mosquitoes. He’s delicious to them, you see. But he has been very willing. We are setting new fence posts to enclose the entire garden (I have been <i>UNimpressed</i> with the individual wire cages on the boxes, as my arms are not nine feet long). We weeded the beds on the landing and are moving ferns from the creek, which is cheap and exhausting. But he’s been a trouper. </div>
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Blessedly, there are plantings around the property that we inherited. Thank heaven. It’s nice to have someone else’s <i>Afters</i> to give us some courage for our <i>Befores</i>. </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-367493884892175032020-05-24T23:03:00.000-07:002020-05-25T17:27:33.182-07:00The Hush of Ladybugs<div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;">They came!</span> Oh, glorious little things, they came! I somehow missed them last year and thought they were gone for good, but after cold and rainy winter, and a long chilly spring, the earth has warmed and woken up the ladybugs. And here they come, floating through the sky, their silent, milling traffic over my head, and clinging by thousands to the posts and plants and walls of my house. I love the migration.<br>
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Maybe I missed it last year because I was sick. That’s possible. Their migration doesn’t last long, less than a day or two. And I had worried that we had also missed it this year, or that they had chosen some other place to call their homebase. But yesterday while gardening, I noticed a small abundance of them here and there and was hopeful. </div>
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Then, today, I looked out the window.</div>
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Normally, the site of thousands of bugs filling the air might give one pause, or likely the heebie-jeebies, but this is beautifully different, wondrous even. Silent and reverent. I am sitting on the porch at this very moment, hearing the creek, the breeze in the trees, my song birds, and feeling the hush of the ladybugs.</div>
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I learned that ladybugs come to this place every year, having never before been here in their lives. They follow some mystical map, a geographic spirit quest, returning to the place where they were conceived, having never seen it before. They steal away each fall to some hidden den to hibernate, then come out one warm spring day. </div>
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Today.</div>
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After mating here, they will head out into the world, some of them flying hundreds of miles, to lay their eggs, and live their lives, and die. Then, when the time comes, their children will return to this very spot; a place they have never before seen, by route they have never before traveled. </div>
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The reverence I feel sitting here as the red speckled procession flows like an unphotographable river over my head is so immense I can scarcely breathe. It is pure peace. I wish I could share this hush with the world. </div>
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Treading carefully, as ladybugs have landed on the ground. </div>
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Doing a “ladybug check”, before going inside. We don’t want any hitchhikers!</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-82695455014425310052020-05-18T00:18:00.001-07:002020-05-18T00:23:49.806-07:00An Uncommon Song<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;">It's probably been there</span> all along and somehow I just never noticed. With Covid having reduced our daily pace from frantic and frenzied to somewhat placid and peaceful, there are more pauses, more deep breaths, more hushes, and many more breezes in the treezes. As a result, I’ve been spending more time on my balcony and out in the yard lately, enjoying this beautiful, long-awaited spring.<br />
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As this is our third mountain spring, I have by now grown accustomed to the constant tree-chatter. Our bedroom is on the third floor, and with the windows open we get a bird's-ear perch for the morning chorus. Now, much in the same way that one learning a new language goes from hearing a flowing stream of sound, to identifying syllables, and soon, words, I have come to understand that much of the sky song I had been hearing was coming from a single virtuoso.</div>
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It rings out from the trees; five or six short bursts of melody, each sung-syllable unique, but strung together like a necklace of precious pearls. This ballad is followed by a silence just as long as it's tune, and then a new refrain warbles and trills; a new strand of pearls, the same bright tones, but arranged in each phrase differently. Sometimes, somewhere off in the distance, there is an answering call, similar but not the same to the one nearby, that fills the silent spaces perfectly. A sonorous Yin and Yang. Kindred carolers.<br />
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I have become obsessed with trying to see this magical musician. Certainly, it must be one of the beautiful, bright-orange sky dancers, or yellow breasted lovelies I have seen dashing from tree to tree. Maybe the one with the sleek black head and dove grey chest, or perhaps the darling with peachy cheeks and stripes on its wings that can only be seen when it’s flying.<br />
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But alas, try as I might, I could never see my mystery cantor.<br />
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I had to go about this differently! I reached out to my friend, Roy, a wild bird aficionado. He was the one who helped me identify the marvelous White Kite with red eyes that had floated above the trees, motionless, coasting on the wind as though held in place with an invisible string. As large as a hawk, it glided in stunning contrast to the Mediterranean blue sky. Roy would know.<br />
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I sent him a recording, then waited.<br />
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He answered.<br />
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"It sounds like a robin, but could be a Rose-breasted Grosbeak. More likely a robin."<br />
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No, no, no, no. Unacceptable. How could my marvelous minstrel, my bold and booming songster be a common (with-a-lower-case-R) <i>robin</i>? They are the worm-pullers in every coloring book and cartoon, the pot bellied old men of the bird world. How uncouth. This breed is a step above the pigeon and a notch below the grackle, and if you don't know what that is, just look around any Walmart parking lot. You'll see them fighting over cold french fries.<br />
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I refuse the verdict. I deny the diagnosis. I rebuff the ruling! I vote grosbeak. At least. If not something much more elegant and exotic (and without the word <i>gross</i> in it's name). I have caused myself many a disappointment in life from my elevated expectations. You'd think I'd learn. But I held out hope for something <i>special</i>.<br />
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But I looked it up. It was.<br />
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It was just a common robin.<br />
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I will allow you to be shocked and disappointed at my reaction, as in the ensuing days I certainly have become. There is nothing wrong with common, and it's actually pretty amazing when something sort of regular and normal steps up to being magical. Who knew there was a clandestine crooner there all this time, bellowing it's bright tones from within the branches of a tree not 10 feet from my window, disguised as a common robin.<br />
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A few days after his first text, Roy sent a follow-up. He was responding to my comment that I was surprised at having never heard these lovely songs, despite seeing these birds my whole life. He said that he is hearing them all the time now too, but he thought it was just happening in Utah.<br />
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Perhaps they have always been there. Maybe the robins haven't changed, but we have finally slowed down enough to listen, to actually hear them.<br />
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I don't know, but I think the Robin just earned itself an <i>upper</i>case R.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-2897115863023298982020-05-09T01:34:00.001-07:002020-05-12T01:12:13.543-07:00Thank You, Calvin<img id="id_29bd_c5a9_592a_bb25" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/MXBlGQ0s6i3NfUKa5tLQ3JOmEoTwn9Gcla4KoV9Zo0_VEXYjQvUeFfHu8WgrEUM" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br><font size="5" face="Courier New">“He’s probably</font> the worst case I’ve seen in 20 years.”<div><br></div><div>That’s what his reading specialist said. Nine year old Jonah has extremely profound dyslexia. He sees everything, wood grain, water stains, even burned toast, in 3-D pictures. That includes letters. They levitate and spin on the page. Words create patterns and pictures before his eyes. The word “bed” actually looks like a bed to him (do you see it? The headboard and the footboard sticking up?). In his brain, it’s like the letters are cut out of thick pieces of wood, rotating in front of him, revealing their sides and back, upside down, sideways, and diagonally. He doesn’t have the luxury of print that stays in one place.</div><div><br></div><div>It would be pretty hard for you and I to read if we had to chase the words around in the air above the page, don’t you think?</div><div><br></div><div>A few years ago, I was struck with a sudden awareness that the reason I had been prompted, before Jonah was even crawling, to homeschool our kids was <i>for <u>this</u> little boy</i>. The feeling was powerful, an instant paradigm shift. In one moment, I became suddenly aware that <i>this</i> child, with his very unique temperament and astounding creativity, would have been destroyed in an environment of arbitrary assignments and communal expectations made with no regard to his interests and talents. And this came before we even knew he had a learning challenge, which is part of the blessing. Whenever I doubt myself as a homeschool mom, I have that moment to look back on. </div><div><br></div><div>In the process of learning how to teach Jonah, I’ve been learning so much about dyslexia. I’ve even learned that besides Ellie, who we already knew had it, that Ethan and I both have it too. Mine is a story for another post, and I only wish I had known about Ethan’s back when he was in school.</div><div><br></div><div>The other kids might have done well enough in public school. Tessa grows beautifully wherever she is planted, and Ellie’s sweetness gets her through a lot of tough situations. Nano is a spaz, but super smart and quick to learn. She’d do well, as long as the teacher didn’t mind having a singing grasshopper in class. </div><div><br></div><div>But sweet Jonah is a different story. He is perhaps my most sensitive child. If he is feeling shame or embarrassment for any reason, the whole factory shuts down, rendering him unable to function. Rage can loom just beneath the surface, and it doesn’t take much for it to break through. He has a tender soul, which can attract bullies. Being given multiple of directions confuses him, and he doesn’t do well with several adults to focus on. </div><div><br></div><div>Learning how to be the best mom for Jonah has been an exercise in balancing my own emotions. He’s a barometer, and feels everything around him. He’s an investigator of facial expressions and body language, and studies people’s emotional state (dyslexics are masters of pattern recognition), reacting strongly to any negativity. If my voice elevates, if my expression shows even slight distain for his behavior, he crumbles. I have become an expert poker player, learning to read his tells -which are very subtle- and reshuffling the cards before he shuts down. </div><div><br></div><div>On top of it all, Jonah has a profound creativity. I have never seen a child so artistically inclined. His artwork is amazing, his engineering clever and sophisticated, and his problem-solving, eloquent. He is a brilliant collector of knowledge about all wildlife and nature. He studies biology for hours on end. There’s just one problem…</div><div><br></div><div>His brain was not built to read. You have never seen a child work so hard to achieve so little on a daily basis. I have held him in my arms as he wept in frustration, learning the same letter or the same tiny word over and over again, only to forget it again the next day. And the next. And the next.</div><div><br></div><div>I started with the usual things that had worked with my other kids, moved on to the brain training that Ellie had found success with, and then found a kind woman, that reading specialist, at church who worked with him for a year out of the goodness of her heart. He progressed some, but true reading was still an elusive goal. We got additional resources from the charter school, and have worked with several different reading programs, each offering its own tools and helps along the way. We are finally seeing progress, albeit very slow. </div><div><br></div><div>One of the hardest things about having a child with dyslexia is that their reading abilities are far below their intellectual ones. Books that are easy enough for them to read are “baby books” in their eyes.</div><div><br></div><div>All but one. Well, one collection, I should say. Calvin and Hobbes.</div><div><br></div><div>Thank heaven above for Bill Watterson, the cartoon creator, over whom I have literally prayed with gratitude. Somehow he took a little boy who is smart and funny and wild and who struggles, and wrangled him into the pages of those blessed books. He gave that boy a companion; a conscience, who is wise and noble, and a little bit naughty, with a sophisticated sense of humor. They are everything Jonah needs right now. </div><div><br></div><div>Jonah and I read Calvin and Hobbes every day, jumping from strip to strip based on how Jonah feels in the moment, which you can do, because every strip is it’s own tiny story. The font is easy for him to read, and having it all in capital letters somehow helps him. We even find ourselves talking about things like science and politics as I explain why a certain strip that he’s not understanding was funny. Calvin is a pretty awesome little boy.</div><div><br></div><div>In the past few weeks, Jonah has finally begun to blossom. He’s reading words like, <i>people </i>and <i>snowball </i>and<i> feathers</i>, which is huge considering a few months ago he still couldn’t consistently read <i>him</i> or <i>and</i>. He calls the word <i>the, </i>“that stupid little word”. </div><div><br></div><div>He’s come such a long, hard way. </div><div><br></div><div>Jonah has recognized that if spaceman spiff is in the pictures, he probably won’t be able to read those frames. Words like despicable, adversary, and mertilizer-laser are a little complex still. </div><div><br></div><div>But I’m not worried anymore. When he’s ready, I know Calvin will be waiting for us.</div><div><br><br><img id="id_7358_d749_448f_55ca" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/jzhlzlgNDV30twfrdwLduTYR0nhPZsl-gdbNrEPDTUrt8SBPS-1j-WGO4tm3T5w" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br>(If you are worried about the bean bag being too close to the stove, don’t be. It’s an optical illusion. It was two feet away.) </div><div><br></div><div>Resources we have used:</div><div><br></div><div>Other Traits of dyslexia:</div><div><a href="https://www.dyslexia.com/about-dyslexia/signs-of-dyslexia/test-for-dyslexia-37-signs/">https://www.dyslexia.com/about-dyslexia/signs-of-dyslexia/test-for-dyslexia-37-signs/</a></div><div><br></div><div>Book: The Gift of Dyslexia by Ronald Davis</div><div><br></div><div>Linda Mood Bell reading program</div><div><br></div><div>Brain Training by Diane Kraft </div><div><br></div><div>All About Reading program by Marie Rippel</div><div><br></div><div>And of course, Calvin and Hobbes, by the wonderful Bill Watterson. </div><div><br></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-27470557102771661972020-04-30T15:46:00.001-07:002020-05-06T22:52:04.134-07:00Critters<img id="id_3f53_231a_6d3f_5bb6" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/jRv4fPBhevAogU4eTfiLH7bz0yDi2YP2amuG6KrkxzfPHKn1AVRWCRXDiIrZ3dE" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br>I don’t like animals in the house. Not the kind that shed, have accidents, use furniture for scratching posts, or leave various presents around. I’m also not a big fan of wet noses on bare legs, and sniffing of... *ahem*... nether regions (seriously. Go’way, dog). In some circles that makes me a very, very bad person, and I have learned to be okay with that. You pet lovers out there, I AM NOT JUDGING YOU! You do you, with or without the hair balls. You can love on your critters ALL DAY LONG. But I probably won’t. <div><br></div><div>It’s not what you think. Pets look at you longingly, desperately, wanting attention. <i>NEEEEEEDING</i> you. My kids think I hate house pets, but it’s just that there are so many living creatures (the two legged kind) that need me, I can’t have an animal in my life that gives me that mournful, disappointed look. Not one more living thing to worry about. I already spontaneously generate guilt over the tiniest of things in this life. <i>Can #6 plastic be recycled or will it just end up in the landfill anyway? How much spring mix has turned to compost in my fridge this month?</i> <i>Are my porch lights disturbing the flight patterns of migratory water fowl?</i></div><div><br></div><div>Then, there’s the actual important stuff. <i>Did each kid get my individual attention today? Have I shown my husband he’s important me? </i> <i>HAVE I DONE ANY GOOD IN THE WORLD TODAY?</i> (You want guilt, look up the lyrics to that one on a day you feel like litterbox fodder). </div><div><br></div><div>In the past, we have had the “wag-my-tail, take-me-for-a-walk” kind of pets. I fretted. Is he sick? Is he lonely if we leave him for several hours? And later, watching him die was unbearable. Frankly, darlings, it was too much, what with all the small humans with stubbed toes and ear infections running about the place, demanding medical care and food and whatnot. </div><div><br></div><div>I feel the emotional pain of others pretty strongly, and even feel physical pangs when people I care about are in pain. When my boys got their wisdom teeth out, and when Ethan badly broke his collar bone, my chest <i>hurt</i> just to <i>look</i> at them. Shuddering, heartsick pain. I feel it with friends, and sometimes even strangers. Pain for their pain. </div><div><br></div><div>It can be the same with animals. Just the other day, when we went to tend to a friend’s horses, one of the horses was lame and in a great deal of pain. I could feel it so strongly that the horse, who had on previous visits been very calm with me, began literally pushing me around with his head. He was confused by what he was feeling <i>from</i> me, and his owner had to step in and help me. </div><div><br></div><div>Dude, I signed up for that when I had my babies. Six contracts for periodic-but-guaranteed heart wrenching grief. Not for little things like skinned knees or bonked noggins (I have superglued my share of split chins and lanced a few boils in my tenure), but for the serious stuff, you bet your tintype, sister, I <i>feeeeeeeel</i> it. </div><div><br></div><div>I just don’t need the ’tude of a stuck-up feline on top of all that. This is what I can handle:</div><div><br></div><div>Lizards. And fish. In big glass boxes. Things that can’t just walk up to you and say, “Hey, lady, feed me,” or “Snuggle me, woman. <i>Now”. </i>None of that crazy-happy, frantic tail wagging, or apathetic “talk to the cat-butt” attitude, please and thank you. And no more hamsters, people! They are the dollar-store toy of the pet world. They don’t live long, but the pain for their heartbroken little owner lasts ages. Poor little Tessa grieved for months and months over a lost hamster. His tiny grave in a flowerpot came with us when we moved. We just planted fresh pansies over him yesterday. </div><div><br></div><div>No ma’am. Not for me. Give me fish and lizards and maybe a snake once in a while. A lot of moms would think having reptiles in their house would be horrifying, and I won’t pretend we haven’t had a few escapees. But bearded dragons don’t lick you, and fish don’t need hugs. They have few demands, and I’ve never once lost a minute of sleep wondering how they were “feeeeeeling”, which frees my heart up for the critters who do. </div><div><br></div><div><div><div><img id="id_8fd2_c6e2_b355_77df" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_pblSa9s60L0MKN4nuAIZdnwNQc7aR3VLEFo2BLTsdpSdXx_FeGdMUPfT2OHMHc" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"></div><div><br>Jackie is always sweetly encouraging me to like furry critters. She does voices for her dogs saying hello to me on video as they bask in a sunny window with half closed eyes. And Ellie says that she thinks someday I will. She says when I’m an old lady with no more little ones to tend to, I’ll get myself a little dog to love on and fuss over. </div><div><br><img id="id_1db8_db18_41af_a67f" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/nkkdd5D6vhc__3QW1bh0bOOUfdJq1Mtj6ao4AQ9vCVGy02Sa7OQPrR1WH8dJ68o" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 392px; height: auto;"><br><br> </div></div></div><div>Never say never.</div><div><br></div><div>But I’ll still have Guy, and if the past 25 years have been any indication, I’m sure he’ll be lots hairier by then. </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6323963189060803882.post-52363082054160029832020-04-28T21:54:00.001-07:002020-04-28T22:14:04.776-07:00Visions of Tetherball<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span class="s1" style="font-size: 17.41px;">Gather round, my little chickens, so that I can tell you a story. </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-size: 17.41px;">What, you ask? <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Another post so soon? Has someone replaced the procrastinating soul that runs this blog with someone with motivation? Indeed! That’s right! Red toenails!</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-size: 17.41px;">Anyway, on with our story, that we haven’t even started yet. </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-size: 17.41px;">Once upon a time (a few days ago), Ellie, Guy and I took a drive. Remember? </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-size: 17.41px;">You were there… in the last post. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Ah, yes, now you remember.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-size: 17.41px;">Wait. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Back up. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>No, stay there, I will back up...</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-size: 17.41px;">Lately, I’ve been looking into ways of getting the kids more physically active whilst</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-size: 17.41px;">sequestered here in our mighty woods. According to said children, "moving stacks </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-size: 17.41px;">of firewood isn’t fun.” <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Big babies.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-size: 17.41px;">Tetherball seemed like a great fitness fix! The ball can’t bounce down to the creek, </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-size: 17.41px;">and it's not a team sport (There is no TEAM in HOMESCHOOL. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>There's barely enough for checkers). I did not however, consider how many times Jonah would be smacked upside the head by the ball in the first week. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Many tears were shed, and bruises were sustained. That kid seriously needs to develop some reflexes.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">It just so happens that my kind friend Charrie (pronounced like <i>Sorry</i>, unless you are from Canada, in which case you are out of luck. Sooorry) was getting rid of a tetherball, stand and all! Yay for free! We headed out on a Saturday, and o</span>ur drive <i><b>there</b> </i>was uneventful (<i>*cue suspenseful music..."bum bum bummmmmmmmm!"</i>)</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The first task, Phase I, if you will, was to load the tetherball stand into the back of the minivan.</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Charrie's</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;"> diligent </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">husband had made sure that the base would be tornado-proof by using all of the </span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">cement in the greater Sacramento area with which to fill the tire base. Five people tried </span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">lifting it into the van. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">Stitches were popped, toes were smashed, and obscenities were... thought of. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">It wasn’t working.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">(*Tangent that will make sense in a sec*)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is a magical thing that sometimes happens in my head in the face of certain challenges. It’s really cool. When I look at the problem, a solution fills in the gaps visually. I just see it as a mental vision, as though the solution was already successfully in place. It doesn't happen</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> all the time, but when it does, it kinda' rocks. Anyway, I suddenly envisioned tipping the pole, top-end-first, into the van and then elevating the tire base with a tire jack, and finally hoisting it carefully up to the level of the bumper. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">We did it (well, I was at the pole end, so I mostly watched and tried to keep the pole from ripping a hole in the cloth ceiling). It worked perfectly! There was still the small matter of lifting 200+ pounds the eight or so inches into the van, but with much straining and grunting, it was accomplished. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">We joyfully congratulated ourselves, then said our hug-less thank-yous and goodbyes. Then, with Ellie in the captain's chair, we began our ascent up the steep driveway.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">All was well, until we got to the top.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pop Quiz: If a ten foot pole with a 2 inch interior diameter is left outdoors in the rain all winter, how much water will dump onto the front seats when the van reaches the top of the driveway?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Answer: </span><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mathematically</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">, 6.18 liters (there’s a formula)... which converts roughly to: one lap, one shoulder, a console, two cup holders, two </span><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">floor mats</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and 1.75 water-bottles full.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh, but numbers don't paint a picture! Come now, no more math. Let's paint. We'll use WATERcolors (waka-waka!).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">As Ellie rolled to the top of the drive and got over the hump of sidewalk, the van-turned-teeter-totter brought the pole level with mother earth, and sweet, sweet gravity did what she does best baby.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now children, it's time for a little science: <i>What happens when a level pole full of cold water begins shooting said water out at a rate of </i></span><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>approximately</i></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>, say, a firehose, all over a console, a driver and a passenger? </i> That's right, children, those individuals experience something known in scientific circles as the "W</span><i style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">hat-the-heck</i><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> phenomenon.” That is when the passenger (the more experienced driver) bellows "Stop!" between a series of "oh-my-gosh-es" and "holy craps.” The less experienced driver, either out of reflex or pure </span><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">adrenaline</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">, dutifully obeys the experienced driver and mashes down on the brake like she is smashing a rabid spider.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>And what, my little ducklings, do we call it when an object in motion meets with no resistance while in motion?</i> Well, to be honest, I had to look this one up, but it is called IN-ER-TIA. </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">You get the gold star. Why, yes, little Sally, it <i>does </i>shoot out at what appears to be a greater rate of speed than the aforementioned firehose. This is called the "Gush Factor.” One might compare it to a large quantity of old water blasting out of a pipe in a minivan. Oh wait, that's what it was.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well done, all! Gold stars for everyone!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">I slapped my hand over the end of the pole like a mom covering the pie hole of a potty-mouthed four year old in the checkout line, a move enhanced by reflexes garnered over 23 years of snatching airborne babies from </span><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">catapulting</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> face-first off of sofas, and from catching projectile vomit in my bare hands. I called out orders, "Ellie, don't move! Guy, Blanket! Start emptying water bottles!"</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">My arms in synchronous motion, I staunched the flow with my right hand while crossing under with the blanket in my left to mop up the splash zone. I know you can't picture it, but believe me, it was multitasking at it's finest. Guy and I were like a fine-oiled machine, he passing empty water bottles to me, me passing full ones back to be dumped. Finally, the flow subsided, but we weren't fooled. We knew that at each downhill slant, the sluggish remnants would slop out like baby spit-up (wow, too many mommy metaphors. I really need to get out more).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was then that I told new-driver Ellie that I wanted her to repeatedly accelerate and then mash on the brakes until our wonderful little friend <i>Inertia</i> was all out of liquid malice, followed by instruction NOT to employ this new skill during her driver’s test. It worked, and as the last trickle drained from the pipe, we smiled, propped it up on the sopped blanket for good measure, and headed home.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Upon arriving home, there was now just the small matter of <i>removing </i>the beast.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh, children, you thought you were done with math, didn't you? No, no. One more math problem, just for chuckles:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>If it takes Susan </i>and <i>four of her friends to get a 200 lb tetherball pole into a van, what is the ratio of </i>denial<i> to </i>gall<i> that Susan must have to believe she and just two friends can take it back out?</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><br /></i></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Enter: Laine's cool vision thingy again. Phase II, The Unloading</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><br /></i></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I suddenly pictured the tire base sitting outside of the van on a large stump, almost level with the bumper. I then pictured it being held with the pole parallel to the ground, as the van was pulled away, unsheathing it like a really weird looking sword. It just so happens there are many giant, super heavy wooden stumps laying about the place, which was mighty handy. Ellie rolled one over, and Guy and Ellie began the process of rolling the base from side to side, in essence "walking" it up to the edge of the bumper, while I directed the pole end around headrests and light covers. Then came the last heave-ho! To be honest, I have no idea how they did it, but Guy and Ellie lifted that beast those few back-breaking inches out onto the stump.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Okay," Guy said, "Drive away!"</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Me?" For some reason the part of "getaway-car-driver" had been played by Guy in my little mental movie. I hadn't gotten around to telling Guy the next segment of my cognitive cartoon, wherein we used boards to roll the base off the stump to the ground. I pulled the van away and it went perfectly. In the rear view mirror I could see the tire on the stump with Guy and Ellie supporting it. I hurried to put the van back into it's normal space so I could get back to help with lowering the base.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I got out to help with </span><i style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Phase III, The Lowering</i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">, just in time to see Ellie and Guy chasing the now very mobile tire doing what tires do best... rolling - yes ROLLING - toward the creek. Let me rephrase that; rolling to the drop off that goes down 30 feet to the creek.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">There was screamy-yelling, and then it was over.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>This was not in the vision!</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">*****</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">No. It didn't roll off the edge. That would have been epic though! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Did I get you? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">No, no. Ellie, who is amazingly strong, had sprinted past the cement freight train and stopped the dang thing from rolling off the small cliff. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Guy later informed us that if the beast had careened off the ledge, it would have stayed down there forever (not to worry, I’m sure I would have had a vision of exactly how to get it back out). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">When interviewed by a perplexed wife later, the husband recounted that Ellie had inquired how they should go about getting the stand down from the stump.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Just let it go, I guess." had been the answer.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Good advice for a Disney Princess, bad advice for 200 lb rubber coated cement projectiles.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">****</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the end I got my tetherball, stand and all. I played it one time, just to show the kids how. And that was the last time.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Turns out, I forgot. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don't really care for tetherball.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2